School District Wins Grants for Biliteracy

The Pascagoula-Gautier School District won State Farm’s Neighborhood Assist Grant this time around.
News 25’s Gina Tomlinson checked in at Pascagoula’s Aaron Jones Family Interactive Center for today’s announcement and shows us how far reaching this $25,000 grant will be.
More than 30 percent of the children accepted into the Pascagoula-Gautier School District’s pre-k program are Hispanic, but many test scores slid down due to poor English skills. A new grant is creating a window of opportunity for those children. Director of English Language Education Melissa DeAngelo said, “It starts with bridging that gap. There’s a language barrier. Period.”
It’s time to break the barrier, English and Spanish books will fill the district’s early learning program’s new Bilingual Lending Library, funded by a $25,000 grant the Pascagoula-Gautier School District won. Director of Pascagoula School District’s Early Beginnings Kelli McCorkle said “We’re just extremely excited. Our kids, our students, especially those in the Hispanic population will benefit from this grant.”
The grant money will be used to fund books, tablets, computers, and other tools promoting bi-literacy for all students. The lending library will be for kids five and under. School administrators say this will not only help these kids and their families, but the future of the community. “Literacy is going to be the key to compete nationally. We’re going to have a crop of people in our area that can pick and choose where they’re going to work because they have additional skills that the average person doesn’t,” said DeAngelo.
School administrators say this is just part of the district’s continual outreach to embrace families and students from all walks of life and to better equip students with what they need to achieve success. “We’re going to help you learn to read. We’re going to nurture your native language. We’re also going to help you become a leader in this community,” said DeAngelo.