$150,000 Kellogg Foundation literacy planning grant.

At the end of last school year, the Kellogg Foundation awarded us a $150,000 literacy planning grant to develop a 7-pronged literacy initiative. The 7 literacy prongs are:

1. Parent education for the parents of newborns

2. Parent education for the parents of 3-4 olds

3. Pre-school

4. Summer literacy

5. Family literacy

6. Literacy for struggling readers

7. Literacy in after-school programs

We already have some of these literacy prongs in the school district and community, and our goal is to expand them so that we can fully meet our students’ needs. Some of these we do not have. Our goal for these will be to develop models that can be funded and implemented outside of our traditional state funding. We are working with a number of partners in this effort: Boys and Girls Club, City of Kalamazoo, Douglass Community Association, Goodwill Industries, Hispanic-American Council, Kalamazoo Communities In Schools, Kalamazoo Community Foundation. Kalamazoo Literacy Council, Kalamazoo Public Library, and the NAACP. This is a growing coalition.