Literacy specialist takes job with state
Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key has named Kiffany Pride the new assistant commissioner for learning services in the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Pride will start July 1, replacing Stacy Smith. On June 11, Key said that Smith will become the state superintendent for coordinated support and service, effective July 1. Smith replaces Mike Hernandez’s role leading a staff that works with academically and financially struggling schools. Hernandez is going to work for the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators on July 1, replacing Richard Abernathy as executive director when Abernathy retires in December.
Key cited Pride’s leadership and experience in literacy. She worked as a teacher, literacy coach and athletic coach for the Little Rock School District, adding that “the schools in which she worked saw dramatic improvements in student outcomes.
She spent about six years as program administrator for the Pulaski County Special School District’s Department of Learning Services before joining the state Department of Education in 2018. She started out as a Response to Intervention coordinator for literacy from August 2018-February 2019. Then she became a Reading Initiative for Student Excellence assessor until August 2019, when she moved into her current role as the director of curriculum and assessment.
The Reading Initiative for Student Excellence is a multifaceted initiative that provides teachers with different levels of training in the science of reading and strategies, promotes the importance of reading, and provides guidance and resources to assist in meeting a child’s literacy needs.
Pride, 46, has a bachelor’s degree from Hendrix College in Conway; a master’s in middle-childhood education from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; a master’s in reading and literacy from Walden University in Minneapolis; and a specialist designation in educational leadership and a doctorate in educational leadership from Harding University in Searcy.
Pride’s new salary was unavailable Tuesday. She earns $91,999 in her current job, according to the Transparency Arkansas.gov website. Smith, 49, the current assistant commissioner for learning services, earns $121,396 in that position, according to the state’s website.