Four priorities will guide the Shelby County Schools board this year
Students at Willow Oaks Elementary School in Memphis watch a performance facilitated by Cazateatro bilingual theater group during Shelby County Schools summer learning academy. (Laura Faith Kebede/Chalkbeat)
Laura Faith Kebede
Laura Faith Kebede is a distinguished journalist in residence at the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis. She leads the Institute’s Civil Wrongs project to write about historical cases of racial terror as a corps member for Report for America. You can follow her on Twitter @kebedefaith.
On the literacy front, the district is adding teacher assistants in second grade and implementing a phonics curriculum this year to ramp up a plan to hold back students in second grade if they don’t meet certain reading benchmarks in the 2021-22 school year.
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