For students at Slater, the garden is much more than a place to grow vegetables—it’s a living classroom where science, nutrition, environmental stewardship, and culture come together.

Under the leadership of Master Gardener Lorraine Langston, students in Pre-K through fifth grade spend time in the school’s environmental science program planting seeds, tending raised garden beds, caring for compost bins, learning about pollinators, harvesting fresh produce, and even helping prepare recipes using the foods they’ve grown.

“This grant validates the incredible work happening every day in our school garden,” said Laura Peña-Telfer, K-12 STEAM PBL Instructional Coach for �ڹϳ�����. “Our students don’t just learn about healthy food, they experience it firsthand by planting, growing, harvesting, tasting, and sharing it with their families.”

The Literacy Leader shines a light on schools that are making meaningful progress for students and recognizes schools that demonstrate extraordinary student progress and proficiency. Schools are recognized for achievement, growth, or both on annual end-of-grade or end-of-course assessments. The criteria recognize the crucial importance of grade-level reading in third and sixth grades, and require higher growth from schools with lower achievement levels.

Throughout Georgia, earned Literacy Leader recognition for 2024–2025. This achievement highlights the state’s growing progress in literacy education, supported by new evidence-based English Language Arts standards and comprehensive initiatives designed to strengthen reading instruction and outcomes.

Congratulations to Principal Jovan Miles, the outstanding educators, and the Slater students for this incredible achievement.

At �ڹϳ�����, learning goes beyond textbooks and classrooms. It’s connected to real-world challenges, community partnerships, and scholars’ lived experiences. As the K–12 STEAM Project-Based Learning (PBL) Instructional Coach, Laura Peña-Telfer, PhD, works alongside teachers to design learning experiences that are rigorous, relevant, and deeply engaging. Through PBL, she helps scholars see themselves as innovators, problem solvers, and contributors to their communities. We sat down with Dr. Peña-Telfer to learn more about her role, her passion for PBL, and her vision for its future at PBSA.

As a PBL Instructional Coach, how do you describe your role in helping teachers design learning experiences that connect classroom content to real-world challenges?

My role is to leverage the wealth of knowledge our teachers already bring and support them in making meaningful cross-curricular connections that bring learning to life for scholars. I enjoy serving as a sounding board, drawing on my classroom experience, instructional coaching background, and research experience to support teachers in designing authentic PBL units. I also help connect teachers with community and industry partners so learning is grounded in real-world challenges.

What excites you most about the PBL approach, and how have you seen it transform student engagement or confidence across grade levels?

What excites me most about PBL is its potential to disrupt long-standing opportunity gaps, particularly the underrepresentation of communities of color in STEM fields. PBL creates access to high-quality learning experiences that position scholars as active participants in their learning, recognized as innovators, problem solvers, and knowledge producers.

Research consistently shows that well-designed PBL supports deeper understanding of content, strengthens critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration, and increases engagement by connecting learning to authentic, real-world contexts. I’ve seen PBL affirm scholar identity, build agency, and amplify student voice across grade levels. When implemented with fidelity, scholars demonstrate stronger performance on both traditional and performance-based assessments, retain what they learn, and confidently apply their understanding in new situations. Most importantly, PBL makes learning meaningful and relevant.

�ڹϳ����� partners with many community organizations. How do these partnerships influence or enhance the PBL experiences you help support?

Community partners are an essential component of STEAM and PBL. They bring career expertise into the classroom and offer scholars tangible examples of STEM careers and pathways. These partnerships strengthen PBL by helping scholars see how academic content connects to real professions and real-world problem solving. Exposure to community and industry partners supports inspiration and workforce development, helping scholars envision themselves in future careers and understand the relevance of what they are learning.

When you’re collaborating with teachers, what are the key elements you aim to build into a strong PBL unit, regardless of subject or grade?

I begin by listening to teachers’ ideas, questions, and even their trepidations. From there, we establish clear learning goals and meaningful real-world contexts. Strong PBL units are grounded in content standards while centering collaboration, reflection, and relevance. Across all subjects and grade levels, I focus on including an authentic problem or challenge, opportunities for student voice and choice, and multiple ways for scholars to demonstrate their learning.

Looking ahead, what are your hopes or goals for expanding or deepening PBL across �ڹϳ�����? What impact do you envision for students and the wider community?

Looking ahead, my hope is to deepen and expand PBL across all grade levels so it becomes an integral, shared approach to teaching and learning at PBSA. I want PBL to be understood and valued as a way to build bridges between content areas, between school and the real world, and between scholars’ learning and their lived experiences. When that happens, the impact extends beyond the classroom to families, communities, and future pathways for our scholars.

“One of the phenomenal things about working at �ڹϳ����� is the opportunity to collaborate with organizations and do innovative things you might not see in a traditional public school,” said Jovan Miles, principal of Slater Elementary School. “I want every kid in this building to become an independent, confident reader. It’s phenomenal to know we have people here who can provide the exact support our students need.”

ReadSource provides targeted reading interventions, helping students build critical literacy skills that lead to measurable academic gains. The impact of ReadSource is already evident:

• At Slater Elementary, students receiving ReadSource services outgrow their peers in reading achievement by an average of 8 percentage points.
• At Price Middle School, that number rises to 9 percentage points.
• In 7th grade, ReadSource students outgrow their peers by 17 percentage points.
• In 3rd grade, the difference is even more pronounced at 22 percentage points.

“Reading is another form of liberation,” explained Natasha Hogan-Mahan, principal of Price Middle School. “When a child tackles learning with confidence, the world truly unfolds before them. We are immensely thankful for our partnership with ReadSource and for the incredible opportunities it has brought to our Price students.”

Facilitated by Dr. Tonya Williams-Saunders, School Engagement Manager at Slater Elementary, the co-op serves low-income families and provides a unique alternative to many traditional food-centered programs.

“We have a dynamic group of program participants who span between the ages of 21 through 72!” said Dr. Williams-Saunders. “As a group, we work collaboratively to help one another. The food co-op is truly special in that it helps to decrease food insecurity and increase food availability for numerous families.

The program has grown significantly since its inception in 2021. It originated with 10 members and has now increased to 43 families.

The co-op, which has a maximum of 50 families, meets every two weeks. Members volunteer their time and energy to do the lion’s share of what’s necessary to unload, sort, organize and distribute an average of 3,000 pounds of food equitably and according to family size. Urban Recipe Co-ops create food security as well as providing a place where relationships and community are built and the dignity of everyone involved is affirmed.

The co-op has saved caregivers hundreds of dollars in monthly food costs. Most families receive approximately 40 pounds (or more) of food at each distribution.

“Our families really appreciate and benefit from program participation,” concluded Dr. Saunders-Williams.

The program at Slater Elementary is held bi-monthly on Thursdays beginning at 4 p.m. All co-op members must be present by 4:30PM to participate and receive food. Prior to being accepted into the program, all interested individuals must complete a mandatory orientation that is approximately 30 minutes.

“We are thrilled to offer this professional development opportunity to outstanding educators who have demonstrated their commitment to �ڹϳ����� Built Schools and our scholars,” said Mike Davis, CEO, �ڹϳ�����. “We are confident that their dedication and participation will significantly contribute to the advancement of STEM education and PBL within PBSA.”

Over the next two semesters, the cohort members will engage in the STEM endorsement, comprising two 18-week courses: “Elements of STEM” and “Intersections of STEM.” Successfully completing the requirements will enable participants to add the STEM field to their existing professional certificates.

“This rigorous endorsement, akin to a graduate course, demands a significant time commitment,” said Anjanette Farrar, PBL & STEAM Coordinator, �ڹϳ�����. “The assignments are designed to support STEM instruction and encompass tasks such as developing integrated and project-based learning lessons and units, writing a grant, creating a professional resource collection, visiting a STEM-certified school, engaging in collaborative discussions with STEM colleagues, and collaborating with STEM partners.”

Congratulations to the educators selected for this cohort:

Meet the Cohort

“This is a major milestone in the trajectory of �ڹϳ����� Built Schools and our mission to turnaround underperforming schools and cultivate students’ skills and agency in pursuit of their unlimited potential,” said Mike Davis, CEO, �ڹϳ�����. “We have had significant growth in student achievement this year across all three of our schools.”

All three schools saw an increase in their content mastery scores in SY2022-23 and two schools – Slater Elementary School and Price Middle School – received a score of 100 on CCRPI’s Closing Gaps metric.

Slater increased its content mastery score by 9 points; Price increased its content mastery score by 5.7 points; and Carver increased its content master score by 2.1 points. Carver also increased the overall graduation rate by 3.4 points, raising it to 80.5 percent.

“Our schools have encountered significant challenges, and our school leaders, teachers, and families have worked diligently to reach this point where our scholars are in an environment where they can thrive,” said Dr. Nikkita Warfield, Chief Academic Officer, �ڹϳ�����. “Our daily task is to ensure our students, regardless of their background, have access to opportunities and experiences that foster growth and success. I couldn’t be prouder of this achievement, and I look forward to sharpening our focus even more to continue on this path.”

Slater, Price and Carver worked directly with the Georgia Department of Education’s Office of School Improvement, which provided assistance to help them improve the educational outcomes of their students. This collaborative effort reflects our commitment to ensuring every student receives the support they need to succeed.

Since she started in SY 2022-23, the number of students who participate in school breakfast and lunch has increased significantly, particularly among high schoolers, where the increase went from 20% to 60%.

Children spend a large proportion of their waking hours at school and consume a significant proportion of their daily calories while there. Schools, therefore, have the ability to help shape dietary behaviors and attitudes about food. Moreover, schools that serve students from low-income communities– where access to fresh and healthy food is limited– can impact students’ physical and mental health since poor diets lead to negative health outcomes.

While nearly all students served by PBSA come from low-income households and qualify for free school lunch – which is often synonymous with processed and bad-tasting lunch– at Carver STEAM Academy, students line up for the salad bar stocked with spinach, romaine and an array of vegetables. Chef Nana has to give them tickets so they don’t double up on salad – the cost of fresh food is far more than less nutritious options. The wildly popular new food choices came out of a student-driven initiative to spark widespread cafeteria changes and enhanced nutrition across �ڹϳ�����.

�ڹϳ����� Built Schools’ leadership listened and responded with new menus and a new nutritional program that includes a school breakfast, lunch and snack program that �ڹϳ����� Built Schools operates autonomously under the Atlanta Public Schools umbrella. �ڹϳ����� Built Schools purchases its own food, cooks meals from scratch, and employs staff who are salaried employees with benefits. The organization has been successful in attracting workers who have extensive food service experience and has significantly improved food options for students and staff.

The flexibility and autonomy of that partnership has allowed Chef Nana and her team to create a delicious and nutritious way to get students what they asked for. And it’s working. For instance, at the end of SY22-23, a larger proportion of students attending PBSA schools had participated in school meals (breakfast and lunch) throughout the year compared with the APS participation benchmark average.

Studies show there is a connection between healthy nutrition and academic performance, however healthy food costs much more. For instance, a fresh apple can cost up to $.40/each, whereas a pre-packaged fruit cup, which typically contains both added sugar and corn syrup, costs closer to $.17. �ڹϳ����� Built Schools invests an extra $300 per student each year to give them nourishing food. As noted above, the majority of their students receive nearly all their nutrition at school with most eating at least two meals, plus snacks.

“Our students deserve delicious, nourishing food,” said Pusey-Wade. “I am so proud of the students who helped advocate for changes to our nutrition program and thankful to �ڹϳ����� Built Schools for helping fund such an important initiative. Our deserving children are reaping the rewards of having these new food choices.”

The Georgia Department of Education (GADOE) recently recognized Slater among 155 Georgia schools who have exceptional achievement or growth in third-grade reading as 2022-2023 Literacy Leaders. Slater is among 84 schools on the list with a 15% or higher increase from 2021-22 to 2022-23 that are being recognized for outstanding growth. Slater is one of 15 Atlanta Public Schools (APS) and 10 that received recognition for growth in ELA assessment scores.

“The ability to read opens up the doors not only to the rest of a student’s education but to their ability to continue learning throughout their life,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said. “That’s why we are laser-focused on literacy at the Georgia Department of Education and as a state. These schools — our Literacy Leaders — are doing exceptional work to ensure every student is equipped with the lifelong skill of literacy, and it’s an honor to recognize them.”

In October, Superintendent Woods visited Slater to recognize and congratulate the school for being a Literacy Leader.

“We are committed to promoting a love of reading for our students,” said Jovan Miles, Principal of Slater Elementary. “At the beginning of the SY23-24 school year, a group of educators at Slater formed a literacy committee to help create a new approach to literacy and building a culture of loving to read. We know reading is a gateway to success in school, and at the end of the day, we just want our students to thrive.”

Literacy Leader qualifications use the Georgia Milestones Reading Status indicator, which is based on the Lexile score associated with students’ performance on a subset of questions on the ELA assessment.

• A cohort of teachers, paraprofessionals, coaches, and other leadership staff began LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Science), a professional development program based on the science of reading.
• The school implemented three reading curricula: MyView, Kendore Phonics, and Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum to ensure instruction in all pillars of literacy.
• Schoolwide challenges to promote an increase in use and achievement on Lexia Core5, a technology-based instructional program built on the science of reading.
• Administration of a detailed phonics diagnostic tool for grades K-5.

At the beginning of SY23-24, impassioned staff members were buzzing with ideas to promote a love of reading among students. A literacy committee was established, and it isn’t led from the top down; rather, it engages any staff and partners interested in fostering a culture of reading at Slater.