TO: Honorable Mayor & Members of the North Port Commission
FROM: A. Jerome Fletcher II, ICMA-CM, MPA, City Manager
TITLE: Approve the 2022 Suncoast Summer Reading Challenge Memorandum of Understanding Between the Patterson Foundation and the City of North Port, Florida to Support the Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading within Summer Camp.
Recommended Action
Approve Memorandum of Understanding between the Patterson Foundation and the City of North Port to Support the Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading within Summer Camp.
Background Information
The Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading is a communitywide effort to help all children, especially those from low-income families, succeed in school by ensuring they read on grade level by the third grade. Research indicates that while school is not in session during the summer months, children lose two or more months of reading skills. Through this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the Patterson Foundation will provide funding and strategic resources to the City of North Port George Mullen Activity Center (GMAC) Summer Camp to help preserve and strengthen GMAC campers reading skills. Funding from this program is based on the number of elementary school-age children enrolled in camp and the number of weeks camp is in session.
Parks & Recreation has participated in this program for the past four years. Last summer, 168 campers participated and read over 4,175 grade-level appropriate books within the shortened eight-week summer camp session. Testing by the schools at the start of the 2021-22 school year indicated that 100% of the GMAC campers that participated in the program retained 100% of their reading skills over the break. In total, the City received $11,057.18 in funding via this program for 2021 and since the program's implementation in 2018, the City has received an average of $8,000 annually.
In preparation for this year's camp program, staff attended additional training and will provide ...
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