The Grant County School District has a strong focus on literacy. Our logo, “Destination: Success through Literacy” emphasizes our belief that success in school - in all subject areas and at all levels - is dependent upon the ability to read and understand the written word.

Our focus on literacy began as a part of our “Comprehensive District Improvement Plan” for which we were asked to identify areas needing improvement in the district. Our administrators had begun to notice that our reading scores, while once high, had flat-lined, and had not improved at the rate we would have liked. This fact, together with a whole myriad of alarming statistics from experts in the field, thrust the district into action.

Much activity began behind the scenes. A District Literacy Committee was formed. Teachers passionate about reading began meeting regularly to discuss topics such as: where we were as a district, what strategies / resources we were using, what worked, what wasn’t working, what we could do to improve. While they were busy analyzing the home front, they, too, had reading assignments from which they learned local, state, and national, and even international statistics, trends and strategies.

Realizing the vital role parents and families could play in ensuring success for their student, the Literacy Committee developed a simple reading workshop that teaches family members the importance of reading with their child -- and strategies for improving reading skills, vocabulary, and comprehension while doing so. Once the program was developed, the Literacy Committee turned to our Community Education Director and the Family Resource Centers in each of the schools to take the training into every home. The FRC enlisted parents who were passionate about seeing our students succeed, and together, the FRC personnel and the parent committees became experts in training other parents. This group named the program “Families on Board” and adopted the slogan “The Most Important 20 Minutes of Your Day -- Reading with a Child” To date, several hundred Grant County families have been trained in these simple, but effective reading strategies.

Back to the school setting, the Literacy Committee continued in their quest to improve classroom instruction. In June, 2005, Grant County Schools hosted its first-ever Literacy Conference. This two-day event was quite comprehensive in its content, and was attended by our entire instructional staff.

We believe this focus on literacy is vitally important. We also believe we cannot do alone what could be achieved together.