The Campaign for Grade Level Reading (CGLR) announced their 2023 Pacesetter Honors on November 14, 2023, recognizing exemplary efforts to support early grade reading proficiency. The Dayton/Montgomery County Team was designated a national Pacesetter for its efforts across the cradle-to-career continuum. Specifically highlighted were:
Preschool Promise’s use of LENA technology to help educators develop early literacy skills, language and vocabulary in young children;
Learn to Earn Dayton’s Mighty Classroom model focusing on family engagement, student attendance, and high-dosage tutoring to raise reading proficiency; and
The collaboration between Learn to Earn Dayton and Dayton6th to launch the county-wide Every Day in School Matters attendance campaign, to combat chronic absenteeism.
“Working in partnership with local educators, school administrators, nonprofit partners, businesses, and policy makers, Preschool Promise and Learn to Earn Dayton have developed innovative approaches that provide children and families with tools that bolster early literacy” said Stacy Schweikhart, CEO of Learn to Earn Dayton. “Our deep partnerships are essential to achieving student success;it’s heartening that the spirit of collaboration that is so core to our mission is recognized with this Pacesetter Honor from CGLR.”
CGLR focuses on promoting early school success as an important building block of more hopeful futures for children in economically challenged families and communities.
The theme of the competition this year was "Moving the Needle in Impact Areas," and the judges considered programs that ensure that few children start school so far behind, end chronic absence, and equip parents to succeed as the child's first teacher, among other categories. CGLR focuses on promoting early school success as an important building block of more hopeful futures for children in economically challenged families and communities.
“It indeed is time to move the needle in impact areas and these Pacesetter Communities demonstrate how mobilized communities are succeeding,” said Ralph Smith, managing director of CGLR. “Let us all learn and grow from recognizing and understanding what they’ve accomplished. We applaud the civic leaders and local funders whose time, talent, energy and imagination have fueled progress in these Pacesetter Communities.”
Statewide educational achievement scores were recently released. Learn to Earn Dayton, serving as a hub for educational data, found that while there is still significant work to be done in reaching regional third grade reading proficiency scores, Montgomery County scored slightly higher than the State overall. This is a testament to the civic infrastructure that had been developed to be responsive to the disruptions created by COVID and a commitment to welcome all partners to the table for the benefit of students. Schweikhart continued, “As this designation shows, our efforts have resulted in progress, and we need to continue to mobilize our community by working with our schools, businesses, nonprofits, civic leaders and parents.”
In Montgomery County, the local GLR campaign is coordinated by Learn to Earn Dayton and includes dozens of partners driving toward stronger educational outcomes for our young learners. The Campaign for Grade Level Reading will be incorporating details of award winning practices into a “Playbook” to be shared nationally, and the team will be featured as part of the upcoming Crucible of Practice conversation series.
"Our efforts have resulted in progress, and we need to continue to mobilize our community by working with our schools, businesses, nonprofits, civic leaders and parents." -Stacy Schweikhart