DONALDSONVILLE - Teachers in Ascension Parish may be feeling a lot less stressed this week after they were granted a $2,000 raise.

On Tuesday, the school board matched the raise the state granted the teachers, doubling the increase. 

Just a month away from school starting, first grade teacher Jane Cullivan was busy prepping her classroom at Central Primary School.

“I've always told parents that in first grade your child is like a little bud, a flower bud at the beginning of the year and they learn and they grow so much that you really see that flower blossom,” Cullivan said.

Cullivan has been teaching for 32 years, but her role goes far beyond the classroom.

“A little bit of everything you're momma, you're a teacher you're a nurse, you're judge, you're jury.”

Teaching is a devoted job that's finally getting the recognition it deserves. Earlier this month, Govorner John Bel Edwards signed Louisiana's $30 billion operating budget at an elementary school where he hailed the first statewide public school teacher raise in a decade.

Tuesday night the Ascension Parish School Board matched that by approving a budget that will grant teachers in Ascension a $1,000 dollar pay raise and $500 increase for other school district staff.

“Teacher is the heartbeat of our organization now what takes place in the classroom every day is what we do know what goes around that to support that is important too,” said Superintendent of Ascension Public Schools David Alexander.

Alexander says the approval of this budget allowed them to reward school staff for their great work.

“We've been allocated with the resources that we feel like we can purpose toward our staff,” Alexander continued. “These pay raises are across the board so it's not just teachers that are getting pay raises. We have a value for every employee that we have.”