September 25, 2015 – The State Board of Education has awarded Striving Reader Grants to schools in Rockdale County.

Students in local schools will soon benefit from additional funding awarded to Rockdale County Public Schools. This grant comes on the heels of the system receiving the Striving Reader Comprehensive Literacy Grant for its Early Learning: Birth to 5 application in the amount of $516,000 in May 2015. The system was recently notified it will be receiving an additional $2,896,750 beginning October 2015 for another Georgia’s Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Grant proposal. The grant funds received will be used during a five-year grant period for the specified purposes expressed in each of the schools’ Literacy Plans. Rockdale County Public Schools’ application was one of five that was approved for Cohort 5.

The Striving Reader Grant is a competitive grant that is federally funded and emphasizes a lifetime of literacy. The Georgia Literacy Task Force’s definition of literacy is the ability to speak, listen, read, and write, as well as to view print and non-print text in order to communicate effectively with others, think and respond critically in a variety of settings to a myriad of print and non-print text, and access, use, and produce multiple forms of media, information, and knowledge in all content areas.

As a part of the federal Striving Reader Comprehensive Literacy planning grant, Striving Reader is a program aimed at raising literacy levels and funding is used in each school for teacher professional learning; benchmark screeners to develop reading ability and progress; and robust materials, curriculum, and technology to support literacy integration.

“Literacy is the key to education,” says Superintendent Richard Autry.  “This additional resource will help strengthen our programs and support the hard work of our teachers, students and support staff.  I appreciate all of the school and district staff who worked long hours to secure this grant funding to benefit our children, schools and community.”