"Fireworks", Classroom Connections and Measurable Moments highlight SCCPSS's 2024 Literacy Week

Teacher: Are we correct? Yes. Fireworks, everybody.

Ken Slats: Fireworks during Literacy Week is certainly one way to look at it. A week to spark attention toward teaching our children the basics of literacy.

Kareem Weaver: Oral language development is jet fuel.

Slats: And the district brought back one of the country's leading literacy educators and community advocates, Kareem Weaver.

Weaver: We've been observing from a distance the development of their literacy plan, seeing it grow in the clarity and the concise nature of it. It is something that I think other districts would do well to identify and follow.

Andrea Burkiett: He knows the work. He knows the research. He knows the science. So to be able to engage with someone like that, to receive feedback from him as he's seen practices in other places, to hear the glows from him and to hear some areas of growth from him, are very impactful.

Dr. Denis Watts: We're definitely not where we want to be, but we are much further along than where we were just a year ago. And it's exciting just to be able to see that vision come to life here and in the schools.

Slats: A year ago is when Weaver last visited, and that's when the district began to look up toward the North Star.

Watts: People use it to navigate from point A to point B similarly, literacy has to be a constant. It has to be a fixed fixture within our school district because we know when students are literate and they're proficient readers, they go on and have success not only in school but in life.

Burkiett: They are leaning into the professional learning that's been provided to them. They are taking that knowledge and applying it to the classroom.

Watts: The use of our curriculum and the materials were constant classroom to classroom to classroom. Secondly, I saw very high student engagement. Our kids were all in. And thirdly, and the thing that I'm probably most excited about is, joy factor. And it was an environment where kids felt safe to practice. And that then led to them being all and to their learning.  And if we can start that at an early age, that only grows exponentially.

Weaver: We all want our kids to read. So saying that that's the North Star gives us a rallying cry.

Watts: Being able to really pull our community in and invest them in this process and give them a pathway to participate and to engage is going to be so important, and it will help accelerate where we're trying to go as we continue this journey towards the North Star.

Slats: The journey continues after classroom visits, supporter presentations, local author readings and strategic follow us all celebrating Literacy Week for us. I'm Ken Slats and.