Rome City Schools submitted a grant to the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) and received funds that will assist with student achievement at Anna K. Davie Elementary School.
The SUCCESS grant would fund the addition of seven intervention specialists to focus on interventions for academic support for all students identified as at-risk based on multiple criteria. The intervention specialists will also focus on subgroups of students such as Black students, students with disabilities, English learners, and economically disadvantaged students. Emphasis will be placed on systemic improvement, coordination of best practices, and building capacity within an MTSS framework.
This work will be supported by the Director of Student Services, Director of Federal Programs, and the Director of Elementary Curriculum at the system level as well as the building principal, assistant principal, and Instructional Specialist within the school. Intervention specialists would provide targeted interventions to identified students in primary grades (one paraprofessional per class). These specialists would work with students who have been identified as at-risk based on beginning-of-year screeners such as Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), Benchmark Assessment System (BAS), and GKIDS Readiness Check.
Interventionists would receive training in Orton-Gillingham explicit reading instruction as well as the Georgia Numeracy Project for math interventions.
They would also receive specialized professional learning in the variety of digital intervention programs that are currently used at AKD, such as Lexia, ESGI, Reading A-Z, Achieve 3000, Exact Path, Seesaw, and Moby Max. Students with Disabilities and English Learners would be included in the intervention process based on their IEPs or Language Service Plans.
RCS requested and was awarded $250,000 to provide these additional supports. This was a competitive grant and was only awarded to 14 schools throughout the State of Georgia.