Colquitt County’s earliest learners will soon benefit from additional funding awarded to the Colquitt County School System.

The system was recently notified it will be receiving $703,245 beginning the upcoming school year for its Early Learning: Birth to 5 application for Georgia’s Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Grant, according to a press release from the system. The grant covers a five-year period.

The announcement comes five months after the system received another Striving Reader grant, that one for $1,943,638 to serve children from kindergarten through fifth grade.

Colquitt County Schools’ application was one of six that was approved, and it was given the highest score among all grants approved.

The Birth to 5 Striving Reader Grant is a Georgia competitive grant that is federally funded. The emphasis of the grant is to provide a lifetime of literacy.

The Georgia Literacy Task Force’s definition of literacy is the ability to speak, listen, read, and write, as well as to view print and non-print text in order to achieve the following:

• To communicate effectively with others,

• To think and respond critically in a variety of settings to a myriad of print and non-print text, and

• To access, use, and produce multiple forms of media, information, and knowledge in all content areas.

As a part of the federal Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy planning grant, the Georgia Department of Education is developing a state literacy plan. The Georgia Literacy Task Force (GLTF) was established in 2008 to begin development of the Georgia Literacy plan.

Colquitt County Superintendent of Schools Samuel DePaul expressed his pleasure about the grant, “With these resources, we will be able to impact the lives of children long before they are our students.”

Newly hired Pre-K Director/Early Learning Grant Coordinator Lisa Strickland shared, “I am eager to continue the fine work begun by my predecessor Lynn Clark. If we can reach our youngest citizens and bring about a love for learning, then our future can only be brighter.”