As new school year begins‭, ‬literacy still a local struggle

The sun has set on another summer break as students in the Dublin City School System returned to the classroom today. Their peers in the Laurens County district and Trinity Christian School, meanwhile, still have a few days left to revel in the relative freedom of the dog days of the season. But whenever the first day of class is schedule, it is safe to say the new school year is upon us. 

Appropriate for this week, the state Department of Education handed down results of the Georgia Milestone test of the last academic calendar giving us a glimpse of the work ahead as our children hit the books once again. While slight improvements were recorded in local reading levels, too many of our children are still not reaching goals for their age range. 

In the county school system, 29 percent of third graders are reading below level. For students in the city that figure jumps up to about 40 percent. With research suggesting that students who struggle with reading at an early age will face challenges throughout their educational career, this paints a grim picture for local schools. However, it is worth nothing that both school systems made great gains in third grade literacy, particularly in Dublin where more than 50 percent of students were reading below grade level last year.   

Stay in the know with our free newsletter

Receive stories from Laurens County straight to your inbox.

Your Email Address

Sign Up

The numbers are about the same for local eighth graders with about 27 percent of students in the county and 37 percent of city students reading below level headed into high school. Those levels saw little improvement (none in the case of the county) from last year. 

The good and bad news on these figures is that they are on par with the state average. Just over 35 percent of Georgia’s third graders are reading below their grade level. Nearly 28 percent of rising high school freshmen across the Georgia are not reading at grade level. 

New math scores, which were another problem area for our schools last year, will be released later due to an update on how students are assessed. 

It is worth celebrating the improvement our students have demonstrated and the hard work of local teachers who are doing the best they can in an area of the state that is underserved and has limited resources. However, we can’t ignore the work ahead to get all students where they need to be. 

Improving our literacy rates needs to be a community-wide priority and is the first step to ensuring Laurens County can sustain our current levels of growth.