Increasing family engagement for families of Coosa County students is one major objective of the Literacy Everywhere! grant program.
Research shows that when families are partners in their students’ learning there are many valuable outcomes, such as grades improve, absenteeism decreases, and students perform better on standardized tests.
Meg Masters, project director for Literacy Everywhere!, and a team of educators and community partners recently completed a week-long institute at Harvard University to receive more in-depth training on family engagement. Team members included Central Elementary teacher Leslie Wells, Central High School teacher Breezy Johnson and community partner Brittany Hogan from Empowered to Conquer.
Leading the institute was Dr. Karen Mapp, designer of the dual-capacity framework for parental engagement. Each day the team listened to a variety of experts in many areas of parental engagement, as well as worked on a plan designed for Coosa County schools.
Ron Mirr, who is a familiar face to many at Coosa County Schools and consultant for the Literacy Everywhere! grant, served as the team’s coach for the Coosa County plan.
The team left Harvard University with a wealth of knowledge and a lot of excitement for the upcoming school year.
Thank you to Meg Masters, project director for the Literacy Everywhere! Grant, for providing information and pictures on the Harvard institute.
