“If [students] can’t read and write … that will hinder their success, “said Autumn Nabors, who coordinates the curriculum for the school department, in a recent interview. “We know these skills are essential in order to learn all areas of content, be it history, science or fine arts or [career and technical education].
The highest number of students found at risk of reading failure were found among black, Latin American, and low-income learners along with English language learners in kindergarten. RPS says. It also found that more students entered kindergarten and first grade and were at risk of reading failure in third grade.
The board voted the year-round school in March, with Jonathan Young, vice chairman of the Richmond School Board, the only one to turn it down on the grounds that RPS desperately needed a revolutionary change in learning.
Now Young is not surprised that the district is where they are planning to resolve a reading crisis.
“At the risk of being less collegial, I have to start with ‘I told you so,’” he said in an interview. “We all realized that closing the school for a year and a half would be a truly unprecedented hardship for our students.”