HPCF GRANTS $300,000 TO GUILFORD COUNTY SCHOOLS FOR HIGH DOSAGE TUTORING
High Point Community Foundation President, Paul Lessard, hand delivered a check for $300,000 at the Guilford Country Schools Celebration of Excellence Event which took place at the Tanger Arts Center on Wednesday night. The check represented the first installment for the HPCF’s Literacy Initiative which will eventually provide additional $500,000 to underwrite the “High Dosage Tutoring” program that will target first graders in High Point elementary schools for the next 2 years. The goal is to have these students reading at grade level by third grade.
“We believe that literacy is the most significant challenge High Point faces as a community moving forward . Our unacceptably high illiteracy numbers have been a generational issue that has negatively impacted High Point for decades,” stated Lessard. “The ability to read is central to the successful navigation of our educational system and life. It can make or break the future of a child, an adult and indeed an entire community. This High Dosage Tutoring strategy gives our students and our community the most effective long-term solution for this issue that affects all of us.”
HPCF began raising money for this initiative in February of 2024 with the goal of reaching $800,000 by the beginning of 2025. They are currently halfway to their goal with potential partnerships with the City of High Point and the David Hayworth Foundation in process.
“The Community Foundation feels so strongly about addressing High Point’s literacy deficit that we have taken over $100,000 of our own grant money to initially seed the fundraising and we have seen several our donor family step up to match our investment,” noted Barry Safrit, Chair, HPCF. “Our goal is to not only raise our $800,000 but to challenge other organizations and businesses to join us in this endeavor. Last night we saw our first partner, Shift-ed commit $700,000! We are a catalyst granter and this is a homerun for us and GCS!”
In his address on Wednesday night Lessard praised the work and accomplishments of our Superintendent, Dr. Whitney Oakley, “I have been President at the HPCF for 27 years and I have worked with 5 Superintendents, and they have all had their strengths. What make Whitney special is her unique connection and commitment to our children and Guilford County. She grew up in this community, went to school here, raised her family here, taught here and she is committed to making a difference here. This is why the HPCF is partnering with her and GCS.”
The High Dosage Tutoring strategy this partnership is driving will address literacy “upstream,” getting to our students who are struggling to read early in their academic journey to have them prepared to learn in middle school and high school. The HPCF feels strongly that illiteracy impacts our community in so many ways including the quality of our local education, discipline in our schools, homelessness, crime, drug and gang issues, incarceration, unemployment and even the future of High Point’s economic development.
Ann Busby, former Founding Executive Director of Communities in Schools, former HPCF Chair and long-time advocate for children and local education and Dawn Spencer, Program Coordinator at the Guilford Education Alliance, and a Trustee at the HPCF have played key roles in the establishment of this HPCF initiative and in the fundraising for the project.
“Literacy in High Point has been neglected for much to long and one of the key goals of our initiative is to remind our entire community, both citizens and the private sector leaders, that Literacy = Self Sufficiency = a Healthy Community,” noted Busby. “We can invest now, and we will reap the benefits down the road with a healthy, more robust community.”
