Klager Elementary School Seeks Financial Support for a New Reading Program
When students come back to Klager in the fall, they will be greeted by more than just new teachers and new classrooms, but a dynamic new reading program.
Over the last few years, an alarming trend was observed with the reading scores with the young students of the district. More and more students were requiring intensive reading intervention, beyond what the school was able to provide. This trend was not only reflected in the in-house reading assessments of NWEA and DIBELS, but on the standardized MEAP test as well.
Klager principal Jennifer Mayes and a team of teachers spent many months researching potential reading programs to meet the unique needs of Klager students and bring everyone up to grade level reading and beyond. The staff had the opportunity to view three different presentations of reading programs and vote for the program they felt best suited the unique needs of the Klager student body. In the end, the staff chose a reading program called Read Well.
The Read Well program is designed for grades K-3 (fourth grade will continue their grade level genre book studies). Read Well is research based and Common Core aligned. It is also endorsed by the Council of Administrators of Special Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research. What made Read Well stand out from the rest was its ability to meet the needs of children at all levels — from low performing students to advanced students. The research provided to the staff demonstrated reading growth in multiple school districts. A school in Florida, for example, was anticipating a 25% growth in its kindergarten students from the beginning to the year to the end of the year, and was amazed to see a 64% gain instead. This program will provide the teachers at Klager with regular progress data throughout the school year. Read Well has been designed for collaboration between teachers not just by grade level, but building wide. There is even a technology component available to the students and staff called Ticket to Read, which will be accessible throughout the school year.
Unfortunately, the cost of the Read Well program is very high. To ensure teachers are able to receive the shoulder to shoulder training required throughout the school year to implement the program effectively with fidelity, the final cost came to $101,183.90, far beyond what the district was able to provide. As such, the school has been hard at work, contacting local organizations and businesses for financial support. At this time, the school has been blessed by the generosity of several benevolent sponsors including: Klager PTO, Worth Repeating, Manchester Men’s Club, Manchester Friends of the Library, CEI Industries, and a private donor. $31,433.90 is still needed as of July 7th.
A recommendation regarding the purchase of the reading program must be made to the school board by Wednesday, July 16. Manchester has always been a caring community that is devoted to the needs of its youngest community members. If you are interested in supporting the children at Klager by helping with the reading fund and would like more information, please contact Melissa Yekulis by Wednesday morning via email at myekulis@mcs.k12.mi.us.
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