Piqua Superintendent Rick Hanes said the project starts with the schools creating 32 interactive online reading lessons in partnership with local PBS station Think TV over the next year. Starting in 2017-18, the students will be given Chromebook computers and the parents will get training to help their children build on classroom lessons at home.
“We’re really trying to develop nonfiction skills in content reading. So they’ll be reading about the environment, about science, about careers in science, technology, engineering and math,” Hanes said. “We’re really trying to beef up the content.”
Seven other local districts were lead applicants for Straight-A grants, but were not selected. Those districts were Beavercreek (which applied for three separate grants), Centerville, Franklin, Greenon, Greenville, Sidney and the Greene County Educational Service Center. Districts asked for money for projects rooted in technology, “experiential learning,” early college credit and more.
Of 140 applications, the Straight A Fund Governing Board recommended 20 grants involving 86 schools for $14.6 million. The Ohio Controlling Board will give final approval Feb. 22.
“The Straight A Fund has unleashed a wave of creativity as educators look to bring innovation into their classrooms,” said Dr. Lonny Rivera, Ohio’s interim superintendent of public instruction.
The grant for Piqua, Milton-Union and Franklin-Monroe comes on the heels of a similar award those districts won for a kindergarten-first grade reading project. Hanes said Piqua got great participation with parents on that first effort, and added that many of those initial REACH lessons (Reading Expands All Children’s Horizons) are now available to anyone on the Think TV website. The project connects to the state’s push on third-grade reading ability.
“We want all of our second- and third-graders to be able to read like their peers, and beyond grade level, and feel good about reading,” Hanes said. “(To) have the skills and the confidence to be able to tackle reading at any level we expect them to.”
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