MOESC Awarded Comprehensive Literacy State Development Subgrant
Launch the media gallery 1 playerThe Ohio Department of Education was awarded $42 million for a Comprehensive Literacy State Development (CLSD) Grant from the U.S. Department of Education to build on ongoing work to improve the language and literacy development of our state’s children. Approximately 95 percent of the award will be distributed directly to local districts, community schools and early childhood education programs to improve literacy outcomes for children from birth through grade 12.
This four-year subgrant will focus on developing model comprehensive literacy sites in early childhood education programs and district preschools as well as elementary, middle and high schools across the state. Recently Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center was notified that it had been awarded a subgrant of $1,050,000 to serve students in grades K through 5 at Mansfield City Schools’ Springmill STEM Elementary and Plymouth-Shiloh Elementary School.
Lynn Meister, Mid-Ohio ESC’s Director of Teaching and Learning said they are excited to begin implementation of the grant. “We will be building these two model sites to become regional and state-wide models for evidence-based practices in literacy. Working closely with the Ohio Department of Education, Mid-Ohio is partnering with these districts to build proven practices that increase achievement for all students. In turn, what is put into place in the model sites can be replicated across other districts in the region.”
The model sites will concentrate on implementing practices consistent with Ohio’s Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement. The grant also will support professional learning and coaching. The partnership between the model sites and the Department will allow early childhood education programs, districts, schools and families to improve student literacy and increase educational options available to students who have been traditionally underserved.
Districts receiving the subgrant had to have high poverty rates and be willing to meet specific requirements for implementing the work to be done, gathering and analyzing data, reporting progress, and creating schoolwide reading systems to improve achievement for all students.
Meister explained, “We want every student to become a successful and confident reader and writer in our model sites, and then bring the evidence-based practices from the grant project to other districts in the region and across the state. The CLSD subgrant builds on the foundational work done during the past three years under Mid-Ohio ESC’s state-awarded Striving Readers Grant. We are excited to get started on this new, critical grant project to raise student achievement and replicate the work across the region.”