Mayor Megan Barry announces Nashville literacy collaborative focused on young kids

Nashville city leaders will immediately begin fulfilling one of the recommendations put forth by the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce's 2016 Education Report Card, Mayor Megan Barry announced Monday during an event held to unveil the report.

Barry told those gathered at the Adventure Science Center that Nashville schools and the city would develop a new collaborative bringing together city leaders and nonprofits to support a birth-to-third-grade literacy initiative to get students on target in reading efforts at an earlier age.

“The percentage of Metro students who don’t read at grade level is very troubling," Barry said in a statement after the event. "But we can do something about it as a community. The literacy coalition will develop a bold birth-to-third-grade strategy to ensure that Nashville’s youngest students can read so that they will be better prepared to succeed throughout their lives."

Metro Schools has struggled in raising literacy rates among students over the years. And because of that, bettering literacy rates among Nashville schools students has been a central focus for Director of Shawn Joseph since he began the job on July 1.

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While community partners aren't lacking in Nashville, he said there hasn't been a dedicated effort to get those groups focused on one common outcome. The collaborative will do just that, he said.

"The work has been fragmented and we want to bring some cohesiveness to it," Joseph said. "It's going to help us move a lot faster because we will build the capacity of people focusing on these key outcomes."

The idea for a collaborative began under the Nashville Public Education Foundation's Project RESET report. Joseph, Barry and community leaders have also further discussed the idea, said Shannon Hunt, education foundation president and CEO.

"This is education the Nashville way," Hunt said. "It's about getting great people together around the table and getting on the same page around a vision and strategy and address whatever needs there are."

The collaborative will bring together groups that include Barry's office, the district, the education foundation, the Nashville Public Library, Alignment Nashville and the PENCIL Foundation. More groups are expected to join the mix.

Elyse Adler, the library's assistant director of community outreach, said raising student literacy rates is too great for any one organization, but the support has been immense.

"So many have been willing to come together to make this happen," she said.

The PENCIL Foundation will continue to bring together volunteers around the district's initiatives, especially the literacy initiative, said Angie Adams,‎ PENCIL president and CEO. Alignment Nashville will support the initiative in ensuring all groups are on the same page in how to go about supporting the collaborative's goal, said Melissa Jaggers, the organization's president.

Jaggers said it will take some sacrifice by some groups in coming together to collaborate and also focusing in what are the best methods to helping students achieve.

"But we are at the point where the time is right to have those difficult conversations," she said.

Reach Jason Gonzales at 615-259-8047 and on Twitter @ByJasonGonzales.

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