E D U C A T I O N
The Chamber strengthens Greater Oklahoma City’s greatest asset – its students – by creating partnerships that make a better education possible for every Oklahoma City Public School District student.
BOOSTING LITERACY Since 2015, the Oklahoma City Schools Compact, which is made up of the Chamber, the Foundation for Oklahoma City Public Schools, Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS), the United Way of Central Oklahoma, and the City of Oklahoma City, has worked together to support improvements of the district. In 2018, the Compact continued that work by implementing important solutions for district literacy, mental health and fiscal projections. The Read OKC task force headed by Mary Mélon, president and CEO of the Foundation for Oklahoma City Public Schools, provided a boost to student reading levels through the Read OKC program. Read OKC has three components: reading challenges completed on school breaks in the summer, winter and spring; a reading buddies program that connects volunteers with OKCPS students; and a “Little Free Library” program that increases access to free books throughout the community.
In 2018, Read OKC hosted three reading programs where students were encouraged to read for 20 minutes a day, each day of school break. Students who successfully completed the challenges received a medal for their efforts, and the top readers from each school were honored at a ceremony where school board leadership and new OKCPS Superintendent Sean McDaniel were on hand to celebrate their success. In total, 8,674 students participated in the 2018 Read OKC reading challenges and logged a total of 4 million reading minutes; 3,910 of those students made their goal.
G R E A T E R O K L A H O M A C I T Y C H A M B E R
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