The Jefferson County Education Foundation creates and funds innovative, new projects not supported by the regular Board of Education budget. One example of such a project is our recent Reading Assistance program developed to assist students identified as below-mastery level in their reading skills to improve their abilities. This effort was so successful that it's being repeated in the 2009-2010 school year. Grants are awarded only to Jefferson County school programs.

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Program offers new ways to learn
Reading skills being improved through various activities

Varied methods of learning in a relaxed, after-school environment are being used to improve the reading skills of middle schoolers in Jefferson County, with the hope that they will also leave with a new love for reading.A grant for $5,000 from the Jefferson County Schools Education Association has made possible the two-day-a-week reading assistance program, which is serving nine students at Charles Town Middle School in its first semester of operation. The program’s participants are students identified as scoring below mastery in the reading portion of the West Virginia Educational Standards Test (WESTEST), who fall within the “achievement gap” educators aim to close, explained Cheryl Hawkins, coordinator of middle schools for Jefferson County.

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