Student Success in the Early Grades

LeVar Burton is an actor, presenter, director, and author. In 2012, he and his team created Skybrary and Skybrary School, a carefully curated, ever-expanding, and interactive library of digital books and video explorations hosted by everyone's favorite storyteller: LeVar Burton himself. Since Skybrary entered the market as the number one educational app, kids have read more than 20 million books and watched more than 20 million videos. Skybrary School has been donated to more than 10,000 Title I schools, with more donations happening each year. It is the go-to, award-winning digital library for parents and teachers to engage young readers and foster a lifelong love of learning. In 2019, Burton donated the Skybrary service to the leading literacy nonprofit organization, Reading Is Fundamental, in hopes of bringing books to millions more kids.

Tabatha Rosproy, a 10-year veteran Kansas teacher, is the first early childhood educator to be named National Teacher of the Year. She teaches preschool for Winfield Early Learning Center (WELC) in Winfield, Kansas. Housed in Cumbernauld Village, a local retirement community and nursing home, her inclusive classroom is an inter-generational program that provides preschoolers and residents with multiple daily interactions and serves special education and typically developing preschoolers in a full-day setting. As the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of school buildings across the country, Rosproy served as a co-chair of the educator task force that helped compile Kansas’s continuous learning guidance. A career preschool educator, Rosproy hopes to bring a voice to the important role early childhood education plays in our society and to highlight the value of social-emotional education at all age levels.