Reading Capital of the World

Readers keep pushing for AR goal

By: Florence Rankin

Tifton Gazette

08/22/2003

TIFTON It's up to the schools now. With about four months to go before the end of the year, Tiftarea readers are moving closer to the goal of 2 million Accelerated Reader points before Dec. 31, Tift County Foundation for Educational Excellence Director Mike Brumby said Tuesday.
Civic clubs, teachers, parents and friends helped add points over the summer, reaching a total of 1,883,800. That leaves 116,200 points to go, points that will have to be earned by local children who continue to take tests at school after the summer program ends. Points totals released
Tuesday showed three schools Charles Spencer, Matt Wilson and G.O. Bailey with enough "teacher" points to earn a $250 bonus for AR books or test disks for their media centers. All 12 local schools earned at least some points for their media centers through the program, which will also fund pizza or ice cream parties at each school for students who earned at least five AR points.

This year's summer total of 21,966 reading points topped last year's 17,839 and 2001's 14,347. The total number of readers climbed from 667 in 2001 to 953 in 2002 to 1,152 this year.
Brumby said the foundation spent more than $12,000 on the summer program, with most of that going for children's and school prizes.Sponsors helped with expenses that could have totaled that much again.

Providing assistance with the summer program were the Tifton-Tift County Public Library, the Tift County Development Authority, Tifton Kiwanis Club, Tifton Rotary Club, Terri Nalls, Jackson Consulting, Tri-State Advertising, individual volunteers, Shoney's, the Gazette and WTIF Radio.
"We felt really good about this year's summer program in a sense that we had more points, more people helping and we cut back on expenses," Brumby said.