By next fall, districts will hire 1,693 teaching assistants for their 1st-grade teachers.
The Mississippi Department of Education will conduct a series of workshops this spring to train the aides, who will spend most of their time helping students to improve their reading skills. The program will cost $10 million the first year. Eventually, each 1st-grade teacher in the state will be assigned an assistant, according to Ralph Brewer, a department official.
Approximately 3,000 more assistants will be hired for grades 2 and 3 over the next two years.
In addition, beginning July 1, the state’s educational-finance commission will conduct a survey to determine the educational needs of the state’s 154 school districts with an eye toward consolidation, according to Frank Lovell Jr., the commission’s executive secretary. The study will be sent to the state board of education in 1985.
