CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It’s been a little over a year since Principal Travares Hicks took the reins at Tuckaseegee Elementary School in Charlotte.

For years, Hicks says Tuckaseegee has been on Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' low-performing schools list, and the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t help. Once Hicks arrived at the school in August, he jumped right in.

“So started off with me doing a whole bunch of interviews, interviewing everyone on staff from the cafeteria workers to instructional leaders to front office staff to be able to identify what are our challenges,” Hicks said. “And also what are our areas of strength to be able to build on those areas.”

Hicks says one of the biggest challenges at the school was student reading scores.

“So being able to have reading at the forefront of everything that we do to let them know that reading is not boring,” Hicks said.

Over the last year, Hicks and his team have found ways to boost scores, not just by reading in the classroom, but encouraging kids to pull out a book whenever they have free time.

“Any time a student has any moment of space and when they’re walking in line or waiting for a bus or in the carpool line, we have them pull out a book and read,” Alexander said.

For Hicks, the struggle his students go through is personal. When Hicks was a child, he slipped through the cracks for years, not knowing how to read.

“When I was in third grade, I missed maybe close to 100 days because I was embarrassed because I could not read,” Hicks said.

Hicks said he’d misbehave in class, so he wouldn’t be called on to read out loud. That is until one teacher caught on.

“She was the first person in my entire life to confront me and tell me that I did not know how to read,” Hicks said. “And she was accurate.”

With the help of his teacher, Hicks says he slowly started to learn. Thanks to cassette tapes she made herself, to help him follow along as he read.

“I remember when Harry Potter came out and I was going to, you know, challenge myself to be able to read that book,” Hicks said. “It had maybe close to 400, 500 pages. And when I was able to read that book, that's when I knew I arrived, and I became a literacy fanatic. Anything I could read and get my hands on, that's what I did.”

He is passing encouragement on to his own students.

“Reading is cool. You can gain knowledge, you can build your brain,” Hicks said. “Your brain is a muscle.”

Through the Tuckaseegee Book Club and the Getting Caught Reading initiative, Hicks says the school has raised the overall achievement grade from an F level to a C level in just one school year.

He hopes with continued community support, and dedication from the teachers, his students will gain a B letter grade this year.