By Jeanna Baxter White “The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round” …. Just ask the NC Pre-K students from Almost Home Child Care who recently rode a school bus to William R. Davie Elementary School for a tour as they prepare to enter kindergarten this fall. For many, it was the first time […]
By Jeanna Baxter White “We aren’t looking for advocates anymore, we are looking for accomplices and we have them in Davie County,” says Greg Alcorn, founder of ApSeed Early Childhood Education. “The Mebane Foundation has been the rockstar of all partners for ApSeed.” The Mebane Foundation and ApSeed Early Childhood Education joined forces last spring […]
By Jeanna Baxter White For two hours on a Monday afternoon, the Central Davie gym resembled a workshop. Seated at long tables, teachers were talking and laughing while cutting word strips, sorting and bagging colored squares, and taping the edges of shower board to create small whiteboards. The teachers were attending one of three “make […]
By Jeanna Baxter White It’s 3:15 in the afternoon. While most of their friends are finished with school for the day, four third-grade girls are bursting through the door of the Mebane Foundation office in downtown Mocksville to take advantage of an amazing opportunity to boost their literacy skills. The Mebane Foundation is piloting a […]
By Jeanna Baxter White It’s 7:45 a.m. on Monday, November 12th, and hundreds of Davie County Schools’ teachers and administrators are filing into Davie County High School for Davie Experience 6, a full day of workshops and collaborative sessions designed to provide professional development for all certified staff in the district. A key workshop for […]
By Jeanna Baxter White Davie County Schools is on a roll–an honor roll. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has released its statewide End-of-Grade (EOG) test data for 2017-18, and Davie County has moved from 45th to 17th out of 115 districts in 3rd-grade reading proficiency. Based on last year’s test results, Cooleemee Elementary […]
By Jeanna Baxter White The Mebane Charitable Foundation has approved a grant of $200,000 to Bookmarks to support “Book Build: Fostering Connections by Building Collections,” a three-year, $450,000 initiative focused on infusing the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School libraries with current, culturally-relevant books. But there is a catch ….. while $50,000 will be released immediately, $50,000 of […]
By Jeanna Baxter White Assessment of child progress, a National Association for the Education of Young Children program standard, helps teachers to improve their teaching and enhances student learning. Currently, observation-based assessment is the most common assessment approach in Head Start and state-funded Pre-K programs. However, it is also time-consuming for teachers, who spend four to […]
By Jeanna Baxter White “Some kids are art smart, or music smart, or book smart, and we don’t get to explore enough of that during a traditional school day,” says Kerry Blackwelder, a veteran Read to Achieve third-grade HillRAP instructor. “I get excited for the kids who are coming to camp because this environment helps […]
By Jeanna B White How much can 16 days change a child’s life? One hundred twenty-one Davie County students are finding out as they attend this summer’s Read to Achieve Camp at Mocksville Elementary School. Read to Achieve Camp is designed to help third-graders meet state requirements in reading to advance to the fourth grade. […]
By Jeanna B. White The teachers became the students as 28 Davie County educators explored using the arts to teach reading, a skill that is fundamental for success in school as well as in life. This A+ Schools training was in preparation for Davie’s summer Read to Achieve Camp which is designed to help third […]
As a result of last summer’s phenomenal results, the Mebane Charitable Foundation, located in Mocksville, NC, has approved a grant of up to $99,845 to support Davie County’s 2018 Read to Achieve summer camp for third graders who have not met state requirements in reading to advance to the fourth grade. During the summer of […]
By Jeanna B. White The Mebane Foundation and ApSeed Early Childhood Education have joined forces to increase literacy scores among at-risk children in Davie County by providing a free e-Reader preloaded with applications designed to improve literacy and strengthen vocabulary. Thanks to a $105,000 grant from the Foundation, based in Mocksville, NC, 1,000 custom-built tablets, […]
By Jeanna B. White Carefully, they climbed from the van. Wide-eyed and wiggling with excitement, the twenty rising kindergarteners from Kountry Kids Learning Center & Preschool and Young Children’s Learning Center were ready for their tour of Mocksville Elementary School. Transitioning from preschool to elementary school can be a scary proposition for many students, particularly […]
By Jeanna Baxter White For children who don’t have an older sibling or have never been to an elementary school, words like principal, cafeteria, and media center are foreign concepts. Davie County Preschool is filling those gaps by providing rising kindergarteners with a book containing pictures of the elementary school that they will be attending […]