Lake County schools share part of $35M literacy grant

Thanks to a $35 million grant Ohio recently received from the U.S. Department of Education, a consortium of five Lake County schools will share a $500,000 grant to help improve students’ literacy skills.

According to a news release from Jennifer Polak, the Fairport Harbor School District’s pupil-personnel director, school districts throughout Ohio were awarded the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Grant from the U.S. DOE to help students with difficulties learning to read. Local grants went to the Fairport Harbor, Perry and Riverside school districts, along with Lake Erie College and the Lake County Educational Services Center.

“The three-year grant focuses on serving the greatest numbers of students living in poverty, students with disabilities, English learners and students identified as having reading difficulties,” Polak’s release states. “The grant builds on Ohio’s commitment to ensuring all students have the reading skills needed to succeed in education and life.”

Polak said the grant will go a long way toward helping the five-school consortium achieve the goals of that commitment.

“Fairport Harbor, Riverside, Perry, The Lake County Educational Service Center, and Lake Erie College have developed a comprehensive literacy plan to improve outcomes for the students across our collective districts,” she said. “This generous award will allow us to specifically target literacy outcomes for our middle and high school students.”

Plans for the consortium-submitted grant include funding activities and professional development of content for middle- and high-school teachers to help them implement “effective, research-based literacy strategies across the curriculum.”

Polak added that “It was a great pleasure to work with the other districts in writing this grant together and we are honored to have the opportunity to improve our curriculum and teaching practices to ensure that our students have the reading skills necessary to achieve success. We look forward to developing this collaborative partnership to improve literacy for students across Lake County and to provide professional development opportunities for teachers.”

Paolo DeMaria, Ohio’s public instruction superintendent, shared Polak’s enthusiasm.

“Reading is the foundational skill that ultimately allows us to learn more, and through this application process, we were able to see the great work happening in Ohio’s schools,” DeMaria said. “These Striving Readers grants put crucial resources directly into classrooms across the state, and we’re excited to work with awardees to improve outcomes for Ohio’s most vulnerable children.”

According to a May 23 Ohio DOE news release, “The Department awarded grants following a competitive peer review process. The Department received 110 individual and consortium applications, representing 208 entities requesting more than $92 million. The federal grant requirements included a prescribed distribution of funding across defined age and grade bands from birth through high school...

“In addition to the federal requirements, the Department committed to awarding grants across all 16 state support team regions with priority given to high-quality applications serving the highest numbers of disadvantaged students.”

The DOE reports the grant program is part of Ohio’s Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement, developed recently through a collaboration with educators and educational leaders throughout the state.

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