Reading Partners Baltimore welcomes new executive director, resumes in-person tutoring

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Christine Pannell

Community Engagement Director, Reading Partners Baltimore

(443) 466-6690 | christine.pannell@staging.readingpartners.org

Zenobia Judd-Williams to lead early literacy nonprofit as it seeks community volunteers throughout Baltimore to impact students 

BALTIMORE, MD – September 21, 2022  — Zenobia Judd-Williams has recently taken over as the Executive Director of Reading Partners Baltimore. A nonprofit leader with more than 20 years of experience in both the public and private sectors, Judd-Williams comes to Reading Partners Baltimore from The SEED School, a statewide college-preparatory public boarding school where students live and learn on campus.

Before her work at The SEED School, Judd-Williams served as the Chief Executive Officer of a regional association focused on developing non-profit, private, and public service organizations. She also held leadership roles in large and small educational, health, housing, and family investment-focused organizations.

“I believe that everyone has a part to play in supporting students, especially as we grapple with educational inequities that were only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Zenobia Judd-Williams, Executive Director of Reading Partners Baltimore. “I am honored to join such an evidence-based, proven literacy organization and lead Reading Partners as we evolve our tutoring program to best serve students.”

Judd-Williams is taking the helm at Reading Partners Baltimore weeks before the literacy nonprofit launches its individualized tutoring program within 14 schools throughout the city, including a return to in-person tutoring for the first time since the pandemic. During the 2021-22 school year, Reading Partners Baltimore continued to support students and advance early literacy in the city while pivoting to serve communities in the face of COVID-19 closures and restrictions. A national nonprofit organization, Reading Partners collaborates with community volunteers and local public schools to provide students in under-resourced schools with the proven, individualized reading support they deserve to read at grade level by fourth grade.

“We know that one-on-one tutoring makes all the difference as students progress on their journey to grade-level reading,” Judd-Williams said. “While Reading Partners created a new, innovative online tutoring program in order to continue serving students in the face of COVID-19, we are thrilled to return to in-person tutoring this school year. Our longtime tutors are eager to return to school buildings, and we cannot wait to connect both new and returning tutors with a student at a reading center this fall.”

Heading into a new program year, Reading Partners Baltimore anticipates needing more than 600 community volunteers to support students’ literacy development. Follow this link if you’re interested in investing one hour a week to help empower a student through reading.

Reading Partners also gets help from AmeriCorps members to train and provide ongoing support to literacy volunteers. Please follow this link if you’re interested in learning more about becoming an AmeriCorps member at Reading Partners Baltimore.

A volunteer tutor and a student in a reading center engaging in Reading Partners’ traditional tutoring program (Photo Credit: Reading Partners)

Zenobia Judd-Williams, Executive Director of Reading Partners Baltimore (Photo Credit: Reading Partners)

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About Reading Partners

For over 20 years, Reading Partners has helped empower students to succeed in school and beyond by engaging community volunteers to provide proven, one-on-one literacy tutoring. Since its founding, the national nonprofit organization has mobilized over 75,000 community volunteers to provide more than 2.5 million individualized literacy tutoring sessions to more than 70,000 elementary school students in nearly 470 under-resourced schools across ten states and the District of Columbia. Visit staging.readingpartners.org to learn more about our program impact and our Reading Partners Connects online program innovation, or connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Reading Partners is a proud AmeriCorps service partner and has been featured on Good Morning America and endorsed by The New York Times.