Beaty featured speaker at Reading First summit

Supt. Marvin Beaty

Marvin Beaty, superintendent of Troup ISD, spoke to superintendents, principals, curriculum directors and Reading First coordinators from all over Texas at the Reading First Leadership Summit held at the Westin Galleria Hotel in Houston on Sept. 14.

" Mr. Beaty 'brought the house down' with his antidotes and humorous stories relating to the education of our most precious commodity, our children," said Jan Singletary, Troup's Reading First coordinator.

The subject of Beaty's speech was "Sustainability of the Reading First Initiative." The Texas Reading First Initiative is part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The main focus of No Child Left Behind is to insure that all students are reading on grade level by third grade.

Troup Elementary School was awarded this grant beginning 2003-04, and the campus has received federal monies each year following. Troup Elementary has reaped the benefits of being a recipient of the Texas Reading First Initiative, said Singletary. The campus enjoys having a local campus reading coach, intervention teachers, extensive reading libraries which reach across subject areas, a reading research based core curriculum and ongoing professional development. These are just a few of the benefits from the No Child Left Behind mandate.

Beaty stated his desire to continue with the goals of Reading First. In addition, math instruction is being patterned after the Reading First model. During the 2007- 08 school year, teachers and students alike will benefit from the support of a math coach along with small intervention groups for students who are finding math concepts difficult to master.

Beaty recognized the leadership of Debbie Moxley who is the principal of Troup Elementary School. Troup Elementary is a TEA Recognized campus for the second consecutive year, with 100 percent of its third graders passing the reading portion of the TAKS test for the last two years.