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State Funding Provides NC School Districts With New iPads For K-3 Teachers

On Tuesday, Superintendent Mark Johnson announced that iPads and similar devices have already been delivered to K-3 classrooms across the state. KERI BROWN/WFDD

Kindergarten through third-grade teachers in North Carolina Public Schools are getting a new tool to help improve student literacy. They'll have a new iPad or similar tablet waiting for them when the school year begins.

State Superintendent Mark Johnson says the devices have already been delivered to districts and charter schools across North Carolina.

He says the goal is to provide a better way to track students' reading progress through apps and to identify where students need help.

The tablets were purchased with unused funds from the Read To Achieve program at a cost of $6 million.

“The General Assembly began Read to Achieve because there is bipartisan consensus that early childhood literacy is a key metric for a student's future success,” says Johnson. “Having more of these tools in each classroom will reduce burdens on teachers, giving them more time to focus on instruction.”

Many school systems already provide iPads for educators, but Kevin Sherrill with Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools says the upgrade will allow the district to direct funds elsewhere.

“It's going to affect roughly around 1,000 classroom teachers on the K-3 level that will have a new device to focus solely on literacy,” says Sherrill. “So it's a fairly big initiative for us to not have to tackle that with solely local funds.”

State education officials say each classroom will also receive a new set of books.

It's part of their effort to focus on early literacy initiatives. In March, Johnson announced DPI's plan to allocate $4.8 million to help educators buy supplies and books. That amounted to around $200 for each K-3 teacher in North Carolina.

*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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