Federal Programs
ESEA Title I
Title I is the largest federally funded Elementary and Secondary Education program. It evolved from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, which was enacted as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. The program provides for supplementary academic assistance to economically and educationally disadvantaged children. The Title I program for the Central Greene School District is federally funded and both elementary schools are school-wide programs.
Title I funds are used in the Central Greene School District to support the school-wide reform efforts in the two elementary schools, Waynesburg Central Elementary and Perry Elementary. These reform efforts include:
· Full implementation of Reading Recovery.
Reading Recovery is a research proven model of instruction, documented by 20 years of research and evaluation. This is the 14th year that Title I has funded Reading Recovery. Reading Recovery is a one-to-one tutoring program for first graders who are having extreme difficulty learning to read and write. Reading Recovery provides intervention at a critical time before the cycle of failure begins.
· Providing an additional elementary guidance counselor.
This is the eleventh year Title I has funded an elementary counselor in an attempt to promote positive self esteem among students.
· Increasing parent involvement.
Title I has long recognized the importance of parent involvement in their children’s education and continues to provide numerous opportunities for such involvement.
· Providing staff development activities in reading strategies for all elementary classroom teachers.
AARA Title I (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009)
On February 17th, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) into law. As part of the reinvestment act, a portion of the stimulus bill is designated to Pennsylvania's schools. With this funding, it has afforded the Central Greene School District the opportunity to purchased Scientific Learning - Fast ForWord, which is a research-based intervention program for Reading. It has also provided funding for an additional kindergarten teacher, which assists in reducing class size in Kindergarten. Lastly, it has supported an after school program for the elementary level.
ESEA Title IIA
The purpose of Title II Part A is to raise student achievement by improving the quality of teachers in the classroom. Any activity funded with ESEA funds must result in a measurable increase in student achievement. The funding provides activities and class size reduction that give to teachers the means, including subject matter knowledge and teaching skills, to provide students with the opportunity to meet challenging State and local student academic achievement standards.
Included under this title is the Class Size Reduction (CSR) and funding for teacher staff development. The goal of the CSR is to lower the teacher-student ratio to 1:18 in the primary grades in an effort to better meet the needs of individual students. The majority of the funding pays for the salaries and benefits of three additional teachers at Waynesburg Central Elementary School. The remaining funds are used to fund staff development activities to improve the effectiveness of instruction.
Annette J. Vietmeier
Director of Curriculum, Instruction, Technology and Federal Programs
P.O. Box 472
250 South Cumberland Street
Waynesburg, PA 15370
724-627-8151 ext. 230
