Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 13
Item no.
13.
receive update and take appropriate action on the proposed literacy campaign developed for the Travis County, city of Austin and Austin independent school district joint subcommittee.
>> good morning, judge Biscoe, Commissioners.
sherri flemming, county executive for health and human services.
and veterans service.
as you are aware, the -- the joint subcommittee, which includes judge Biscoe, Commissioner Gomez from this body and representatives from the city of Austin and the Austin independent school district, has been working together over the last year and a half or so to look at issues impacting graduation rates within the school, the Austin independent school district here in Austin, Travis County, and as a result of the work that staff have been doing on your behalf, one of the I guess visionary items that came forward was the impact of parental literacy on -- on the -- a child's ability to perform and succeed in school.
so as a result of that, the joint subcommittee directed staff to work together with the literacy coalition to design a project that might begin to address some of the literacy concerns that we believe exist within our community, not only from an educational standpoint but also from persons who might have low english proficiency.
so staff have done that.
we have made a presentation to the joint subcommittee about two weeks ago, and we are here today to request a few items from you in anticipation of a resolution that will be forthcoming to the Commissioners court from the joint subcommittee sometime this fall.
so -- so in your backup, you see a description of the program and project that has been crafted.
and during the joint subcommittee discussions, I think each of the representatives indicated there intent to support this project.
r/ supporting this project, we're looking at approximately $10,000 with a split between the three entities of somewhere between 23 and $25,000.
it will involve the -- the programming that you see there, including the training of literacy volunteers.
and promotion of literacy services in the communities, so that we can hope to impact parental literacy which in turn will impact student performance in our schools and increase graduation rates.
so staff is here today to request two actions from you.
the first is your support of us moving forward with this commitment that we anticipate will come in the form of a resolution.
and I believe it is appropriate in that the health and human services department does have resources within the budget that we can commit to this effort.
we also believe .e2x that te late race -- the coalition will need to make some decisions about this project and also the programs and services that might be offered during the initiative support investments that you have already made in workforce development and in the literacy programs.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners] but there's also resources tagged for workforce development initiatives.dd?g
>> miss pogue, anything in addition?
>> no.
>> I think we ought to do it.
>> I think we ought to do it too and we would be a partner -- our participation would, of course, turn on the other two partners participating.
they said they would.
and I think I committed to -- to work with somebody to contact the chamber of commerce and others, right?
>> yes, sir, you did.
>> and I did talk to -- I did talk to the -- I think the chair of the greater Austin chamber of commerce and he suggested that I talk to another person, so I do plan to follow through on that, and whatever funds we get would just be in addition to our contribution.
>> yes.
>> but to me this is one of those deals that we ought to do because in this -- well, in the united states now if you can't read and write, your job finding potential is greatly reduced, and the other thing is when youhp-uzt want parents to become more involved in teaching their kids how to read and write and do their homework, but if they have literacy issues, it's difficult to do that.
so I second Commissioner Gomez's motion to approve the item dependent upon the cooperation of our two main parts, aisd and city of Austin, to be funded from the contract line item of health and human services and that we commit to up to $2,500 in the print shop.
>> yes, sir.
>> and I assumed that we had the taps it because this is kind of a slow period, I hope, but we would get that done at the appropriate time.
>> well, and the reason we asked for your action today is so that do exactly what, but also it allows miss pogue's organization to do planning around the materials we would need for the campaign.
>> and we would need a simple interlocal, hopefully, maybe patterned after the one we did for the software to involve the same partners.
>> absolutely, sir.
>> any discussion on the motion?
>> I just have a total success-up moment.
to identify a cross cutting issue that will move the needle in so many areas that the school district is seeing negative effects.
this really -- this is the kind of special contract in the double entendre context, I just wanted to applaud you all.
>> is there any possibility this can be expand understand the future because it's working so good, especially if you get other municipalities in the county.
for example, Pflugerville i.s.d., manor i.s.d., you have so many i.s.d.s that cross jurisdictional lines and settings, del valle out there, here in Travis County.
and if this is -- I guess if you look at performance and measure it in terms of the success of it, but is there any way possible that relationships can be looked at in other school districts and municipalities along with Travis County in the future?
>> I wouldn't want to speak for miss pogue, but knowing her I'm thrilled she would be glad to have that conversation with us.
>> I think if we look at this, as you heard stated, the writing and the reading as suspect of things are very important.
and, of course, it just doesn't happen within just the i.s.d.
of Austin and city of Austin, but there are other municipalities and other i.s.d.s that may be experiencing similar things.
so maybe just exploratory to see if there are possibilities in the future.
>> absolutely, Commissioner, and our board and also our 70 partner agencies have already begun to explore expanding this.
my service area is the five county region so we're going to see the projects with aisd is a pilot and I would love to have the court's assistance in connecting with the municipalities to see about gauging their interest in rolling this out with the other i.s.d.s as well.
>> right.
thank you.
>> thank you.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you very much.
>> thank you all.
>> good to see you again, miss pogue.
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