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A Resolution recognizing Sister Sandra Smithson for her contributions to Nashville and the State of Tennessee.
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WHEREAS, Sister Sandra Smithson, known to many as simply "Sister Sandra", grew up in Nashville and attended St. Vincent DePaul, the first Catholic school for black children in Nashville; and
WHEREAS, at a young age, Sister Sandra unselfishly decided that her passion was to become a nun like her teachers and help others; and
WHEREAS, Sister Sandra excelled in school and graduated with honors from Xavier University New Orleans. She was then granted a teaching fellowship at Fisk University; and
WHEREAS, Sister Sandra was recruited to be the first woman to host a talk show on Nashville's first Black radio station, WSOK, called "A Woman Speaks" where the show featured local and national issues in politics, religion and general social issues; and
WHEREAS, she answered an internal call to join the Catholic religious order of School Sisters of St. Francis in 1954; and
WHEREAS, in Costa Rica as a principal she initiated a pilot educational project for poor children in the surrounding barrio and continued to work as a negotiator, spiritual leader and visionary; and
WHEREAS, in 1992, Sister Sandra founded Project Reflect, a nonprofit organization in Nashville whose mission is transforming communities through education and policy reform; and
WHEREAS, as the Executive Director of Project Reflect, she focused the work of the nonprofit on reading literacy and translated its Reading Success program into computer software; and
WHEREAS, in 2002, Sister Sandra strongly influenced the passage of the first state charter school legislation; and
WHEREAS, in 2003, Project Reflect opened Middle Tennessee's first free public charter school, Smithson Craighead Academy elementary school which serves 270 children from low-income families with 50% African- American and 50% Hispanic/Latinos; and
WHEREAS, Sister Sandra's educational philosophy is "inform, reform and trans...
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