BESE receives update on Public Interest Fellowship; recipient reports 1,000 reading kits and about 850 families enrolled

The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on an unspecified date received an update on the Louisiana Public Interest Fellowship and heard a presentation from the fellowship recipient, identified in the meeting as Teacher of the Year Kallie Alter, about a parental-reading initiative that has produced 1,000 decodable-book kits and enrolled about 850 families.

The fellowship, managed by the Department's Office of School System Relations, allows the recipient to spend the school year advocating for an education initiative of their choosing. Kelly Stomps, who introduced the item as manager of the fellowship program, said the fellowship provides a chance to pilot and expand promising classroom work.

Kallie Alter described relaunching a website and building a kit-based program rooted in the science of reading. "We re built [the site]... to make it accessible," Alter said, adding that the program now includes videos demonstrating model lessons and an embedded question form for ongoing feedback. Alter told the board she secured discounts from partners to expand distribution and that "1,000 families across Louisiana have these books in their hands now." She said volunteer and local partners — including public libraries, Teach For America Greater Baton Rouge and support from her district — have helped kit distribution and family engagement.

Alter said the initiative includes a short online course (the current course is a 20-minute nightly reading routine) and a planned phonics course with five-minute phonics modules. She described early usage metrics: as of Dec. 13 the program had 564 families enrolled and later had grown to "about 850 families enrolled," plus a YouTube channel with roughly 10,000 views and more than 300 hours of watch time.

Dr. Brumley, speaking after the presentation, placed the fellowship update in broader staffing context, noting workforce signals in the department's data. He said the department saw "a 2% decrease in the number of teachers exiting the profession this last year" and that graduates with education degrees rose from about 1,500 to about 1,700 in 2022–23, an uptick not seen in over a decade.

Board members offered brief comments and suggestions. Mr. Appel urged exploring high-school participation and suggested the department consider helping fund use of tier-one curriculum materials in secondary schools to support language acquisition and content comprehension. After brief discussion the board voted to receive the fellowship update; the motion carried with no objection.

The presentation included details on partnerships and funding sources used to expand the project but did not commit the board or the department to new, specific funding actions. Alter said additional data collection is planned and that the fellowship team will report outcome data after a year of implementation.