Dec 9, 2002 By Kris Schiffbauer 3 min read

Two Laurel Highlands School District administrators teamed up to write a grant application that paid off for the district with a unique opportunity to concentrate on solving potential learning problems among the youngest students. Carol Bubonovich, director of federal funds/grant writing and special projects, and Beverly Bieniek, director of special education/pupil personnel services, co-wrote the grant application that brought the school district a five-year grant of $111,950 in each of the first three years and a lesser, unspecified amount in the final two years.

This pilot program is funded through the state Department of Education’s department of special education. Laurel Highlands is one of five districts in the state to receive the award, which will use materials of Voyager Extended Learning, a vendor selected by the state.

“The state had this (Voyager Extended Learning) in mind and was looking for a model program. They were looking for rural-to-inner city school districts, and we had to apply and show a serious commitment to literacy,” Bubonovich said.

The program focuses on five areas of instruction: phonetic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. The target grades are kindergarten to third grade at Hutchinson Elementary School. The kindergarten and first grades will have this concentrated instruction in the regular classroom, and second- and third-grade students will be involved in after school and summer learning.

Bubonovich said Hutchinson was selected because the district had early intervention/literacy programs in place in other elementary schools.

She said the purpose is to give students the best start in school before they may be identified later for special education. Students, in general, are tested for special education in third grade, unless there is an obvious, earlier need, she added.

“A lot of kids, if identified early, would not go to special education. So, when it comes to third grade, when they would test for special education, these are the kids who would really not need it,” Bubonovich said.

The program will operate with a full-time literacy coach and an instructional aide.

The school board last month named a literacy coach, Alana Bomer, from among the faculty and held training sessions Wednesday through Friday for the Hutchinson classroom and other teachers who would be affected by the program.

The pilot initiative also includes a parent-training component.

“Parents will be brought in so everyone is aimed at meeting the same goals,” Bubonovich said.

The literacy coach will have a flexible schedule, working during the school year and summer. Her job will be to provide continued professional development for the teachers and work individually with the lowest performing students

Saying she is excited about starting the program, Bubonovich noted that children may be mislabeled as needing special education when they simply come into school with some gaps in their learning.

“We want to give them every possible intervention,” she said.