Peak Performers in the Elgin Reading Initiative

For the past three plus years, Elgin Foundation has partnered with school districts throughout Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee in a reading initiative aiming to have 90% percent of third graders reading at or above grade level within six years. Throughout the 44 elementary schools, kids are tested three times a year to measure their progress toward the goal. As expected, each elementary school is at a different place in the journey.

Some of this is because the districts started at different times. Five of the current districts started in 2010 – Bell, Clay, Laurel and Pineville in Kentucky and Tazewell County in Virginia. Two other districts started in 2011 – Buchanan County, Virginia and Leslie County, Kentucky. Last year, our only school district in Tennessee joined the initiative – Oneida Special School District in Scott County.

This past fall we paused to examine where each of the elementary schools are on this journey toward having 90% of their third graders reading at or above grade level, and we wanted to publicly celebrate the list of the top ten elementary schools. Here is the list of the peak performers in third grade literacy in the Elgin initiative.

We applaud these schools for all their work and hope to see each of them, as well as the other schools, reach the 90% goal this spring. At that point we will post a full list of all the schools in the initiative. Hopefully we can celebrate great progress toward the goal for all of our elementary schools.