Community Partnership Raises Millions For WSFC Public Schools

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.

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