Literacy Just a CLICK Away
A new project aims to boost Clinton City students’ reading achievement
By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2005
At some point, Linda Brunson and her team at project CLICK knew they had to hit the “send” button on their online grant application to the U.S. Department of Education. “But when you pushed that final button, it was unnerving,” says Brunson, the assistant superintendent for human resources and administration at Clinton City Schools in North Carolina and director of the literacy project CLICK.
Although Brunson and her team applied for the grant in March, it was a tense few months before they received a reply in July—a phone call telling them they’d been awarded $348,046. It’s an enormous grant by any stretch—and a wonderful windfall for a school district with just four facilities and 2,800 students. While most of the money is earmarked for literacy programs for the district’s 1,500 students in pre-K through grade five, every student will benefit, says Brunson.
One addition will be Destiny Software that will allow students and parents to access school and public library card catalogs from home. “If a child has a project, the parent can help her find what’s available and in some cases even put the books on hold,” says Jan Smith, media coordinator at Butler School.
Smith was part of a six-member team that wrote the grant, along with Brunson, teacher Myrtle Petty, and media coordinator Belva Lovitt at the L. C. Kerr School, and Butler School teacher Winnie White and assistant principal Winifred Murphy. The team wrote in its grant application about the school libraries’ 6,000 out-of-date books, many of which, including history books, are at least 25 years old.
The largest portion of the grant, $231,572, is set for supplies like new books and literacy kits to help Clinton City students learn to read by third grade. Another portion, $40,634, will be used to hire a literacy facilitator. And other funds will go toward computer equipment, extending library hours before and after school, and to fund a summer camp next year. “We’re excited about the opportunity,” says Brunson.
