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Community Partnership Raises Millions For WSFC Public Schools

A community initiative called Project Impact will provide additional operating funds to Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools to address critical student achievement gaps. The program was announced at the Winston-Salem Foundation’s annual Community Luncheon on May 4, 2015. -- photo credit: Keri Brown

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools will soon get a major funding boost to help close literacy gaps and improve math proficiency for younger students. 

Local foundations, businesses and individuals have committed more than $22-million so far to jumpstart the program.

Project Impact will focus on improving third-grade reading and math proficiency, starting with pre-kindergarten programs. 

Plans include more summer camps, expanding pre-k enrollment and additional instructional support. 

“We will launch in summer of 2016 with ten three-week kindergarten programs,” says Emory. “These will be targeted toward students on a pre-k waiting list. We currently have over a thousand kids who are eligible for pre-k that we do not get the funding to serve.”

Scott Wierman with the Winston-Salem Foundation says the program is the first of its kind in Forsyth County.

“We are just so thankful that our corporate community in particular are rallying around and saying we want to support our public schools and we want all of the kids in our public schools to be successful and quite frankly, we need all of our kids to be successful.”

Project organizers say the goal is to raise a total of $45-million over the next six years.

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools is the fourth largest school district in the state, with around 54,000 students.

*Follow WFDD's Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news

Keri Brown is a multi-award winning reporter and host at 88.5 WFDD. She has been honored with two regional Edward R. Murrow awards for her stories about coal ash, and was named the 2015 radio reporter of the year by the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas (RTDNAC).Although she covers a variety of topics, her beats are environmental and education reporting.Keri comes to the Triad from West Virginia Public Broadcasting, where she served as the Chief Bureau Reporter for the Northern Panhandle. She produced stories for the state's Public Television and Radio programs and was honored by the West Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters Association for her feature and enterprise reporting.She also served as an adjunct instructor at Wheeling Jesuit University and Bethany College in West Virginia. She worked with the Center for Educational Technologies in Wheeling, WV, and other NASA centers across the country to develop several stories about the use of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts in the classroom.Keri's journalism career began at WTRF-TV 7 in Wheeling. She worked in several roles at the station, including the head assignment editor. She also was a field producer and assignment manager at WPGH-TV Fox 53 in Pittsburgh.Keri is a graduate of Ohio University. When she's not in the studio or working on a story, she enjoys watching college football with her family, cooking, and traveling.Keri is always looking for another great story idea, so please share them with her. You can follow her on Twitter @kerib_news.

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