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School board will present at national conference
March 12, 2004
The Springfield School Board will make its first-ever presentation at the National School Board Association annual conference March 29 in Orlando, Fla.
The topic will be “Sky High on Reading … A Community Engagement Process.”
The presentation will showcase Springfield’s success in strengthening its community reading programs. Springfield Public School Superintendent Jack Ernst considers the presentation one of the highest honors a school board can receive.
Participating in the presentation will be Dr. Ernst, School Board President Jerry Harmison, Board Vice President Dr. Michael Hoeman and former Board member, David Harrison, who initiated the Sky High on Reading program here in 1999.
School Board members Kris Callen, Mary Norman and Bruce Renner will also attend the conference.
Created to encourage young people to read, Sky High on Reading led to a community book drive, Reading Roundup, that brought in more than 2,500 books and $3,000 in donations in its initial, one day run.
Over the next 3 1/2 years, Reading Roundup and Springfield Public Schools teamed up with others in the community to collect 152,000 books, replace about 100,000 obsolete books and increase the District’s school library collection by about 53,000 publications.
Reading Roundup is now an on-going effort to collect reading material and raise money to improve Springfield Public Schools’ libraries.
Sky High on Reading has been recognized nationwide for its positive impact on the community.
Meanwhile, District student-reading scores have improved compared to the state average since the reading programs were initiated.
The success of the reading programs “shows you can still make tremendous progress in a large, urbanized school district,” Ernst said. “But it takes excellent teaching and a volunteer effort from the entire community to make it happen.”
The National School Board conference is March 26-30. The Springfield School Board will preview its presentation at its March 16 meeting.