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Five of the 19 students in teacher Chelsea Grant's third grade classroom are reading below grade level. When it's time to read aloud on a recent Friday, the students show vastly different levels of skill and confidence. Grant's students – "my babies" as she calls them –- spent the better part of the 2020-2021,school year learning from home. It was first grade, a crucial year for learning to read. Many are still far behind. Mounting evidence from around the country shows that students who spent more time learning remotely during the 2020-2021 school year, many of them Black and Latino, lost about half of an academic year of learning. That's twice as much as their peers who studied in person that year. Third graders are at a particularly delicate moment. This is the year when they must master reading or risk school failure. Everything after third grade will require reading comprehension to learn math, social studies and science. Students who don't read fluently by the end of third grade are more likely to struggle in the future, and even drop out, studies show. "I am grateful that all is well as it is. Right? Our students are thriving. I'm grateful to be able to say that and I think that that is because we have great teachers who, um, consider it a priority to partner with parents. Because we can't leave them out of the equation and that partnership looks different for every parent. Because every parent is doing the best that they can," said Crystal Jones, the principal of Beecher Hills Elementary School where Grant teaches. Grant's third graders may have a better chance than children in other cities to make up for that lost learning. Atlanta was one of the only districts to extend the school day as a response to the pandemic. Elementary school students attend seven hours of school, half an hour more than before the pandemic. Evidence from around the country shows that even when schools provide some of these services, such as optional after school tutoring or summer school, many parents aren't aren't using them.
Press of Atlantic City Staff Writer Selena Vazquez has been named one of the Top 30 Young Latino Leaders under 35 years old in South Jersey by Front Runner New Jersey.
Every year, FRNJ’s Front Runner La Prensa column recognizes some of the young Hispanics who are making a difference throughout the region in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.
Vazquez started with The Press of Atlantic City as an intern. Following two internships with The Press, she was hired as a full-time staff writer in December 2021.
A graduate of Stockton University with a degree in communication studies, she received reporting accolades as the winner of a Program Distinction Award in News, Media and Politics from Stockton and a New Jersey Press Association award for an article she wrote with Press Meteorologist Joe Martucci and Climate Central’s John Upton on the effects of tidal flooding on the Atlantic City community. She currently writes breaking news, local news and feature stories.
A sampling of Vazquez's work:
The end of tourist season means the start of locals' summer
Atlantic City runs on labor
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Started working in newsrooms when I was 17 years old. Spent 15 years working for Gannett New Jersey before coming to The Press of Atlantic City in April 2015.
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