Franklin County Schools Receive $1.8m Literacy Grant

The Franklin County School System is one of 15 school systems in Georgia who will receive a Striving Reader grant.

Awards were announced last Friday by the State Board of Education.  Franklin County will receive $1.87 million over the next several years.

Striving Reader is a comprehensive literacy grant program.  It is aimed at raising literacy levels in Title-I eligible schools where a significant number of students are reading below grade level.

Georgia was one of six states to receive a Striving Reader grant in 2011 and, since then, has received more than $91 million to distribute to eligible districts.

Franklin County School Superintendent Dr. Ruth O’Dell says the grant falls in line with the school system’s goal of improving students’ reading and specifically reading comprehension, which she said changes during a student’s academic career.

“K-3 you’re looking at a lot of reading,” O’Dell said. “A lot of that is fluency, phonemic awareness and things like that. As you move into the fourth and fifth grades it shifts and becomes more comprehension-based, looking at different kinds of genres. Then it shifts again in the Middle School and becomes very discipline oriented in that you have to be able to read science and read math.”

The funding is awarded through a competitive grant process to schools that develop school-based literacy plans, using the State Literacy Plan as a guide.

O’Dell said all five schools submitted grant applications, which included outlining the school’s plan to improve literacy based on the state plan.

“I was thrilled that all five of our schools felt the need to put literacy teams together and write these applications,” she said. “You didn’t have to have one for every school, but no one wanted to give up any opportunity to have this  money.”

The funding will be used in each school for teacher professional learning; benchmark screeners to develop reading ability and progress; as well as robust materials, curriculum, and technology to support literacy integration.

But Dr. O’Dell said the most important aspect of the grant funding is how the students will benefit.

“The most exciting thing for the schools I think is the literature material; the books, the technology, a lot more content information in different fields,”  O’Dell said. “In order to have a quality literacy program in the school you have to have a lot of books and a lot of reading material period, which doesn’t even have to be a book. Technology can be a huge piece towards accessing that kind of reading material.”

O’Dell said each school will be able to order the number and types of books they want based on what students need. There will also be a book center in each school for teachers to access as needed.

Later this month, teachers will go for training on to best utilize the grant money as it’s distributed.

In Georgia, 261 schools currently receive funding through the Striving Reader grant program.