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June 20, 2012

Community education initiative coming together

Press conference set for Thursday

Rachel Brown rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com

Local leaders have talked for years about how to raise the community’s education level and improve overall quality of life for Dalton and Whitfield County.

On Thursday, they’re meeting at the Dalton Community Center for a 4 p.m. press conference to announce at least one way they plan to put all that talk into action.

Melissa Lu, the professional who works with the Archway Partnership that has lead the discussions, said the point of Thursday’s press conference is to show “that we as a community are making some unified steps together towards education and making sure that our kids are on track.”

The initiative centers on Dalton Public Schools’ and Whitfield County Schools’ Literacy Collaborative, a school reform model that focuses on getting all kids reading on grade level by third grade and continues that language focus in programs all the way up through middle school. Students who are behind get one-on-one attention until they can read well. The ability to read on grade level by third grade is a nationally recognized indicator of how successful a child will be in school later.

The county school system has committed $800,000 to begin the program in four high needs elementary schools this fall, while the city school system is adding back about $737,000 for new positions, most of them for the literacy program it has had in place for eight years but cut during several rounds of budget reductions.

Mayor David Pennington said the city will contribute toward the overall goal of having students reading on grade level by third grade through its funding of the Community Center, a new facility that opened this year with plans to house several service and social agencies like WIC (Women, Infants and Children), a library and a health department branch.

Schools have children for only four years of their lives — kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade — before they have to be on grade level, Pennington said, but the social and other factors that can influence how well they perform in school actually start much earlier.

“It is a community initiative,” he said.

Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Mike Babb said county officials haven’t committed any money to the literacy initiative, but representatives from the county will be present Thursday to show their support.

“Obviously, school is one of the things that businesses look at when they’re thinking about placing themselves, and we’re all supportive of anything that improves the schools,” he said.

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