 | | KATHY KNOWER | | Start Making a Reader Today (SMART) volunteer Holly Gerstner reads with student Thomas Milat at Crooked River Elementary. |
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By Shelby Case
Although changes are being made on the state level for the Start Making a Reader Today (SMART) program, Crook County reading volunteers and students should see absolutely no difference.
That's a key message coming from SMART Central Area Program Manager Ellen Valway, in light of the organization making restructuring changes as part of a long-term strategy to serve more children. Across Oregon, this includes changing 198 part-time coordinator positions from paid to volunteer positions beginning this fall.
"The only thing that is happening is we are transitioning our paid coordinator positions to volunteer positions," Valway said. "And that is actually happening all over the state. It is not just in Crook County. My coordinator at Crooked River, Kathy Knower, is staying on so that won't change."
A key goal in the process is to expand SMART to more schools and to get more volunteers.
"That is one of our long-term goals - to add more schools and to add more students because we know there are more students out there that need help," she emphasized.
As for Ochoco Elementary, the person who had been in the coordinator position had informed Valway that she would not be returning after May 30, 2008.
"And that was independent of this decision," Valway said, referring to Patty Reese, who had worked for SMART at Ochoco. "She'd made this decision long before this announcement."
To make sure all children are properly covered in reading help, perhaps a school might have two part-time volunteer coordinators or SMART may have two coordinators at one school.
"At Cecil Sly, we closed that program this year," she said. "Last year, we only had 14 children."
Valway emphasized that whether a school has 40 or 14 children being help by SMART, the program still has to pay a coordinator.
"So we would need a volunteer coordinator or volunteer coordinators there at Cecil Sly if we put in a (SMART) program there," she said. Valway added that getting a reading program back at Cecil Sly is still in the discussion stage and she said she has been in contact with Crook County School District Superintendent Steve Swisher about this matter.
SMART does not have programs at either Paulina School or Powell Butte Elementary. Instead, these schools have their own reading efforts, and she said typically SMART goes in to schools where at least 40 percent of students are on free and reduced lunches.
"We have served 69 children," she said of this school year's numbers for the Crook County School District. At Crooked River Elementary, SMART has helped 37 children this year and at Ochoco that number is 32.
"That's my numbers as of March," she said.
Valway emphasized several key points to Crook County parents and teachers, saying that "for volunteers and children, they should see no change."
"No change in quality," Valway said. CCSD students will still receive the same number of books to take home and keep and they will still have the same amount of time with volunteers.
"My goal is to make this a seamless transition," she said. "Again, we'll need to be creative in the volunteer coordinator position in terms of how we divvy (that) up, but again, for volunteers and children, no change."
"Our coordinators have been unbelievably valuable to us and this has nothing to do with them or the quality of their work," Valway stressed. "So our coordinators have been fabulous and I don't want to make it seem like their jobs are not important.... We are not replacing them."
The CEO for SMART, Terry Shanley referred to the change as "an evolutionary step" to position the organization for growth.
"For the past five years, our delivery numbers have plateaued at an average of 10,000 children served each year," Shanley said. "We estimate that more than 50,000 Oregon children could benefit from the one-on-one attention provided by SMART. We are restructuring to make SMART scalable without increasing our budget fivefold. This change reduces our annual operating budget by $1 million starting in (fiscal year) '09."
According to Shanley, coordinators are seasonal employee with terms coinciding with the school year. Current terms end in May/June, giving coordinators "and SMART ample time for adjustment." |
