Project: Moonshot Lab School and Hub for Teacher Training (Education)
About the organization: The Learning Alliance seeks to transform Indian River County’s future and become a model for the nation by cultivating a culture in which 90 percent of children are reading on grade level by the end of the third grade. The organization was launched in 2010 by parents whose children struggled with reading. Research showed that 35 percent of children nationally were not reading at grade level by the end of the third grade and that only one in four would catch up. These statistics were alarming because children learn to read in the years leading to the third grade so that thereafter, they can read to learn. TLA’s programs and public-private partnerships targeting literacy have been credited with improving the school district’s state ranking in third grade reading from 28th to 12th out of 67 school districts.
Project Summary: TLA has partnered with the IRC School District, setting out in 2022 to launch the Moonshot Lab School and Hub for Teacher Training as a center for innovation, professional development, and learning for teachers and students. The goal is to transform education by combining effective literacy instruction with arts-integration strategies. Phase one, to be completed in the 2022-2023 school year, embeds an Acceleration Team of early literacy experts at Vero Beach Elementary. During phase two, in the 2023-2024 school year, TLA will launch the Moonshot Lab School and Hub for Teacher Training. With an Impact 100 grant, TLA will introduce an Arts Integration Coach to work with educators, teaching them strategies to support ALL students through highly engaging, multi-sensory instruction that deepens reading comprehension. Through training and supporting teachers in pedagogy that incorporates the arts, this grant will help bring the curriculum to life, promoting a love of learning among students and teachers. In 2023, this project will directly and indirectly impact elementary school leaders, teachers, and students across the district.
Why this is a high impact grant: Through professional development at the Moonshot Lab School and Hub for Teacher Training, school leadership teams, literacy coaches, and early literacy interventionists at all district schools will benefit from the systems and practices developed by the Acceleration Team in phase one. They will take the training they receive back to their schools, impacting over 300 teachers and 3,000 students annually. To assess the effectiveness of the Arts Integration Coach and the training provided to teachers, the IRC School District will use its existing metrics to assess student and teacher performance before and after these interventions to track success.
How the project will be sustained beyond Impact 100 funding: TLA is committed to strengthening relationships with existing donors while identifying new ones. Its donor retention rate was 81 percent in 2022, and new donors increased by 19 percent. TLA has also launched a Legacy Society to grow its endowment. Finally, TLA is confident that the proven effectiveness of its programs will attract additional funding.