Suri Roth
Founder and Executive Editor
Suri Roth is the Founder and Executive Editor of The Current Events. With 15 years of experience in the education industry, she is an expert in developing tools that improve the learning experiences of children. Under Suri’s leadership, The Current Events has grown into the only national newspaper for kids, serving more than 45,000 students across the country.
Prior to founding The Current Events, Suri was a schoolteacher and private tutor in New York. She began by teaching reading, science, and social studies to first-grade students. Developing a strong passion for education, Suri also worked one-on-one for several years with children with learning challenges, including ESL, and hearing-impaired students.
Suri began The Current Events in 1999 as a high school teacher and reading coach for struggling third and fourth graders. As an educator, Suri recognized that children’s natural curiosity about the world turned everyday news events into powerful learning experiences. To improve her students’ reading comprehension, she created a “newspaper” with four news articles for kids, printed the first issue off her desktop computer, and made photocopies for other teachers at her school.
The first issue was an instant success and, through word of mouth, teachers at other schools began requesting copies. Within two years, 35 schools were using The Current Events, and within three years, 65 schools were subscribing to the paper. Realizing the potential to share The Current Events with students across America, Suri began devoting herself full-time to kids current events, offering subscriptions and hiring editors and writers. Over the next few years, she created two more versions of the newspaper for kids — an advanced reading level and primary reading level edition.
In 2002, Suri launched a significant expansion of The Current Events with its first publication in newsprint format and sought school district approval to provide the children's news articles to schools throughout New York City. Working with education professionals, she created Teacher’s Guides to accompany the newspaper, aligning it with national education standards in reading, social studies, science, and economics. New York City’s Board of Education approved The Current Events for use in 2003, followed by school districts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Maryland. Today, more than 300 schools in 20 states, including Los Angeles, Chicago school districts, are subscribers to The Current Events, and Suri leads a full team of journalists, illustrators, designers, and educators in producing the kids news articles each week.
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Lynn Russell, Art Director
Charlene Kerwin Reyes, Teacher's Guide Editor
Alison Epstein, Graphic Designer
Ellen Appelbaum,Editor
With 30 years of experience in the field of educational publishing, Ellen Appelbaum is well qualified for her role as Editor of The Current Events. Over the course of her career, she has worked as a writer and editor in all of the content areas, with special emphases on reading/language arts, social studies, and history. A graduate of SUNY-Albany, Ellen’s major in geography and minor in American history provided her with an excellent knowledge base that she draws upon daily in her work at The Current Events.
Ellen has worked for several leading educational publishing companies such as Harcourt School Publishers, McGraw-Hill, and William H. Sadlier. While at these companies, she focused on developing both student and teacher editions of textbooks, intervention materials, leveled readers, assessment materials, second-language support, and online student resources. Ellen joined The Current Events staff in February of 2009.
Lynn Russell,Art Director
Lynn Russell’s love of current events is second only to her love of art, making her a perfect fit for her position as Art Director with The Current Events. Lynn is an award-winning artist whose work is exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. She attended the International Center of Photography in New York City, The School of Visual Arts, The Arts Students League, and Hunter College.
Lynn has taught art to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders through a program she developed. Under Lynn’s direction, her enthusiastic students presented their projects at an exhibition at the Florida Art Alliance.
Lynn enjoys expressing her own artistic talent through painting, photography, and jewelry design. She joined The Current Events staff in September 2008.
Teacher's Guide Editor
Charlene Kerwin Reyes, Teacher’s Guide Editor for The Current Events, is an experienced teacher, writer, and editor with a passion for equipping students to achieve both academic and personal success. Charlene understands that helping students connect to the real world is essential to effective teaching, a commitment that dovetails perfectly with the mission of The Current Events.
Over the past decade, Charlene has taught AP-level courses in American history, world history, and economics to students at the high-school level. She has also planned and implemented department curricula, reviewed and purchased textbooks, and integrated and promoted the use of cutting-edge technology in the classroom. In addition, Charlene has devoted herself to her students by serving as class dean, student newspaper advisor, and an advisor and coach for numerous student clubs and teams.
Charlene received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northeastern University in Boston, as well as a master’s degree in history from the University of Delaware. She joined The Current Events staff in the fall of 2008.
Alison Epstein,Graphic Designer
Alison Epstein, Graphic Designer of The Current Events, has nearly 25 years experience working in the field of journalism. As an editor and designer for several U.S. daily newspapers, including The Buffalo News, The Cincinnati Enquirer, USA TODAY, and The Springfield (Missouri) News-Leader, Alison has experienced the newspaper industry’s transition from hot type set to digital design via virtual networks. She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri–Columbia.
Alison joined The Current Events in 2006, and telecommutes from her home in Israel. She is married and has two daughters, ages 7 and 9. In their spare time, Alison and her husband tend to their beehives.