Cape Girardeau school leaders hope to expand reading program

Three Cape Girardeau elementary schools without a volunteer-run reading improvement program are hoping for future expansion.

Read to Succeed brings around 140 volunteers into Alma Schrader and Blanchard elementaries for one-on-one reading sessions with 75 kindergarten and first-grade students for 45 minutes four times per week.

The program brought 48 of 49 participating kindergarten students at Blanchard Elementary up to grade-level reading ability in 2010, and 20 of 26 first-graders at Alma Schrader have surpassed program requirements as of the start of the second half of the school year, said Monique Johnson, Alma Schrader's volunteer coordinator.

Mark Cook, principal of Jefferson Elementary, and Rhonda Dunham, principal of Franklin Elementary, both say they would love to see the program expand into their schools. It's the same story at Clippard Elementary, according to Amy Emmenderfer, a reading specialist at the school.

All the elementary schools in the district already have 30 minutes each day dedicated to RTI, or Response to Intervention sessions, where teachers work one-on-one or in small groups with students to improve reading and math skills, as well as after school tutoring available. But school leaders say the program would be a welcome addition.

Funding for Read to Succeed comes from the United Way of Southeast Missouri's GRACES Women's Council and costs around $5,000 per school, said Nancy Jernigan, executive director of the United Way.

Jernigan said it will take additional volunteers and three volunteer coordinators to get programs going in the remaining schools. The coordinators can opt to receive a $500 per month stipend for their services, Jernigan said.

Johnson began coordinating Alma Schrader's program at the start of the school year. She worked as a volunteer last year in the program at Blanchard and said she was looking for something she could do during the day with her three children in school and a schedule with Southeast Missouri State University where she sometimes teaches at night.

She described her transition into the volunteer coordinator position as smooth because she was already familiar with Alma Schrader's administration and teachers as a parent. Duties of a volunteer coordinator include recruiting volunteers, assigning them to students, scheduling sessions, keeping volunteers abreast of scheduling changes through email and phone calls and being present during tutoring sessions.

Jernigan said she is hopeful people connected with the three schools without coordinators can be found. Finding volunteers, she said, shouldn't be as difficult because some of the volunteers already in place at other schools could go back and forth, as they already do.

"We would hope that we could get more nonworking parents as volunteers for the other schools," Jernigan said. Volunteering for the program would also be a great opportunity for churches, and college students, she said.

Funding for expansion could come from GRACES, Jernigan said. The United Way is also looking at the possibility of an AmeriCorps grant available through the Missouri Community Service Commission for funding. However, for that grant, the agency would need to hire someone to manage it, Jernigan said. That duty previously went to John McGowan, the agency's director of community impact, who was laid off in November to cut administrative costs.

Jernigan said she believes that even without the grant that there is an opportunity to expand.

"We can do it if we get everybody on the same page," she said.

An anonymous donor gave $10,000 to GRACES recently, and Jernigan said that money and donations from corporate sponsors have boosted the ability of the program.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627

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