After a lifetime in the northeast, not even the leadership experience that Kwame Floyd gained at Penn State could have prepared him for post-Katrina New Orleans.

After graduating in 2007, the former National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) president began working at a new Teach For America charter school in Louisiana.

Some of his fourth grade students still live in FEMA trailers. Some read at a kindergarten level. But, he said, he is still happy with his decision to go.

Floyd is one of 112 new "corps" members that Teach For America has placed in New Orleans this year, and he said he is planning to stay longer than his two-year commitment.

After graduating with a degree in Human Development and Family Studies, Floyd was planning to teach in Baltimore until he heard another student talking about the reality of New Orleans since the 2005 storm.

"This is our World War II. This is our Vietnam. This is our major event of our generation, rebuilding this city," Floyd said.

Even before Hurricane Katrina hit, public schools in New Orleans were some of the worst performing in the nation, Floyd said, and after the storm, these new and reopened schools had a chance to start from scratch.

"You have the chance to create something," he added.

Floyd, who ran track at Penn State for three years, said his experiences through organizations like the NPHC helped him to realize his interests and what he wanted to do after graduation.

Although Floyd had no formal education training, David Nachtweih, communications associate for Teach For America, said people without education degrees but with leadership experience are well-qualified.

"The future of New Orleans is at stake without a quality education for these students," Nachtweih said.

Floyd's leadership in the NPHC affected students like Jawanza Hall who have now ascended into their own leadership positions. Hall (senior-electrical engineering) is now the vice president of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, of which Floyd was a member, and said that Floyd accomplished a lot at Penn State.

Some of Floyd's attributes were "his motivation and his drive just to get things accomplished and do what is needed for the betterment of our chapter and the betterment of NPHC," Hall said.

Although Floyd decided to change his plans for the future after college, his efforts are giving his students a future that they wouldn't have had without him.

"There is a reemphasis on student achievement in this city," Nachtweih said. "We're educating students, but we're also rebuilding this city's future."

Before Hurricane Katrina, 63 percent of public schools in New Orleans had already been deemed "academically unacceptable," Nachtweih said.

After the storm, he added, the enrollment in the city's public schools, most run by the Orleans Parish School Board, dropped from 66,000 to 6,000 students.

The students are young, he said, but they have "their own resilience and their own desire to continue on."

Floyd is a founding faculty member of Langston Hughes Elementary, where his students are ahead of the quarterly plan that he set for them.

All they needed, he said, "was a chance."

Today is Teach For America's next application deadline.