"Teaching students to read is more important than anything else in Charleston County School District.
The county school board unanimously agreed Monday night that that should be the district's top priority, and their historic decision will focus current and future superintendents on the problem of illiteracy.
The final approval of the board's first-ever literacy policy will translate into roughly $8 million being directed this year toward new reading initiatives and will prevent struggling readers from being passed to the next grade without extra help.
The new policy is the culmination of reactions stirred by a series of Post and Courier stories revealing the serious illiteracy problem in local schools; nearly 20 percent of the county's ninth-graders read on a fourth-grade level or worse"
The county school board unanimously agreed Monday night that that should be the district's top priority, and their historic decision will focus current and future superintendents on the problem of illiteracy.
The final approval of the board's first-ever literacy policy will translate into roughly $8 million being directed this year toward new reading initiatives and will prevent struggling readers from being passed to the next grade without extra help.
The new policy is the culmination of reactions stirred by a series of Post and Courier stories revealing the serious illiteracy problem in local schools; nearly 20 percent of the county's ninth-graders read on a fourth-grade level or worse"
