Several years ago the Toledo Federation of Teachers teamed up with the city's public schools and launched the Reading Academy to respond to the districts literacy needs to teach teachers the best approach to reading instruction and offer a summer school program for struggling students.
Today, the school district and TFT are taking the Reading Academy one step further as a state-approved supplemental educational services provider The Reading Academy's expansion into supplemental services came about as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Signed into law in 2002, NCLB requires school districts to offer a list of supplemental educational service providers to parents of children who need extra help in certain subjects, including language arts and reading. The 2003-04 school year marks the first full year the Reading Academy will offer supplemental services.
With the academy's summer school results, the district and the Toledo federation thought that becoming a state-approved supplemental services provider was a logical next step. The reading program, Help for Achieving Reading Proficiency HARP, is similar to the academy's summer school program, which is based on the AFT'S Educational Research and Dissemination ER&D program strategies for reading instruction. These strategies include focusing on phonemic awareness letter sound correspondence, phonics, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, reading and writing connection, flexible group instruction and maximizing time on task.
"We are considered an outside provider," says Georganne Czerniak, one of the Reading Academy's five full-time literacy support teachers, "But the glory of it is that we are Toledo watchers within the Toledo public school system. We know the curriculum. We know the state standards."
"It is just ER&-D at its best," says TFT president Francine Lawrence. Pam Jackson, Art in-class model teacher at Nathan Hale Elementary School, signed up to be a HARP tutor. She was sold on the curriculum after going through the training last year so she could teach at the Reading Academy's 2003 summer school.
"I really think [the program] is great," says Jackson. "The results have been really great here in Toledo. When students retook the proficiency test this summer the passage rate was in the 60 percent range.
"The children are real enthused about this [HARP] program," Jackson notes, "because it involves a lot of participation on their part."
Students get to play the role of teachers, Jackson explains. "They really like it-and I think that makes a difference, too,' she says.
Students in grades 2-6 from designated "school improvement" buildings are eligible for supplemental educational services. This year, says Czerniak, although there were more that 1,550 students who were eligible for the services, only 121 parents indicated they were interested.