Travis County Commissioners Court
August 28, 2007
Item 1
Number 1 is to approve proclamation declaring September 8th, 2007 as international literacy day. Should I read the proclamation? Welcome to y'all. Former county employees and former church member of mine. Scratch the second part by the way. It reads, whereas the Travis County Commissioners court has a vested interest in the progress and development of contracting practices within public and private sector institutions -- and that may be the wrong one. Let's try this other proclamation t reads, whereas literacy is a set of skills that includes reading, writing, math and critical thinking, which are fundamental to learning and to the growth and successful every citizen in this great county. Whereas approximately 20% of Travis County adults experience literacy issues that impact their lives, their ability to earn a sustainable living and their full participation as citizens of our county. Whereas we commend the literacy coalition of central Texas who today joins with community based organizations and community volunteers to provide quality literacy services and other life skills for all citizens. Now therefore be it resolved that we the Travis County Commissioners court do here by proclaim Saturday, September 8th, 2007 as international literacy day in Travis County, Texas. And urge all residents to join us in promoting literacy awareness on this special day and throughout the year. And I move approval.
>> second.
>> morning.
>> morning, judge and Commissioners. My name is meg poague. And I want to thank you for allowing us to come today to accept brait international literacy day. It's an opportunity to raise a little more public awareness about the subject of literacy. I think generally people think that Austin and Travis County is a very highly educated community. And while we are as that is one of our greatest assets, we also have a very large population of people with pretty severe literacy need whose struggle to read and write and speak in english. The literacy coalition is a network of about 80 service providers in a five county area and here with me today are two of our partner organizations who are also representative of our advisory council. Mindyes is here. I'd like to talk about local literacy needs and what that means to our local community. And then gale will tell a client success story that is representative of one person, but thousands of people are receiving literacy services in our county. The first statistic I would like to share is that about 20% of all students in Travis County school districts are in bilingual education. We can assume that most of their parents are not speaking english at home and have difficulty filling out job applications, reading the labels on their prescription bottles and thing like that. And of the 254,000 Travis County residents who speak a language other than english at home, almost half of those speak english less than very well. And we have about 75,000 #- 800 Travis County residents who do not have a high school diploma. We know that every year of education that people receive helps them to get better paying jobs and pay more taxes and have living wage jobs. In addition, children of adults who participate in literacy programs improve their grades and test scores, improve their reading skills and are less likely to drop out of schools. So it is very vital to our children and the future of our economy. And literacy providers are working together. We came together in the late 1990's and early 2000 to form a coalition and the coalition has created essentially a database and referral point for all literacy programs. These programs include small faith-based organizations, large public institutions and nonprofit social service organizations. The coalition has also increased public awareness and volunteerism to expand and support high quality literacy services to better meet our community's increasing needs. Thank you for your attention and gale would like to share a client story.
>> judge, Commissioners. Thank you for seeing us today. We're cliet dlooited to be here. -- we'el to be here. Have a success story from a long time Austinite born and raised here if Austin,graduh carried that degree with him into the service. Servedur vietnam. Couldn't read very much above the third grade lel doing all of that. Came back from the service, had to rehab from a wound that he received over there, and entered the economy here. Never could read. Had a series of part-time jobs. Never had full benefits. And really found himself completely at a loss as to what he might be ready to do with the rest of his life. And his story followed in his own words is available over there and I'm just paraphrasing, but he said after driving by the literacy Austin parking lot, literally thousands of times, one day for some reason he found the courage to furnish in. And when he -- to turn in. And when he did and was able to walk through the door, was tested, placed in one of our classes and stayed with us quite awhile. Part of that was an enrichment class that he was in. He wanted his commercial driver's license. Couldn't read well enough to take the test or pass it. And we had a series of enrichment classes starting about that time, which is a separate series from the rest of the services that we provide to our clients. We have a volunteer that came in from Lake Travis and taught a cdl class to six of our clients that were interested in it. And adam at the end of that class was able to take and pass both parts of the cdl course. He got his practical driving skills through Austin community college and aisd was wait to go hire him when he walk out of there with his driver's license. Since that time he has gone on to an even higher paying job at southwest airlines at the airport, has received a raise, commendations and the last we knew they wanted to transfer him to phoenix to work with their ground crews out there. He attributes a great deal of his success to literacy Austin. We say his success is his own because he had the courage to walk in the doors the first time and for adults that is not always the easiest thing in the world to reach out and ask for help. He's just one of many success story we've got, but with the county's support and the city's support and the public support, you truly are making a difference in a lot of adults lives. So thank you.
>> thank you.
>> and at the other end of the spectrum, reach out and read and other early literacy organizations focus on the children of families with low or no literacy skills, ensuring that they can enter school ready to succeed and preventing or breaking that cycle of illiteracy. Children entering school from these families have extremely poor chances of success in school. They are a -- one-third of children entering school today are already behind. In fact, a lot of children entering head start at age 3 are already 18 months behind. And it's important that the children -- even if their parents cannot read, that they have the brain development that they will need, the neural connection to attain literacy and language skills so that when they get to school they are ready to learn how to read.
>> so our message today is young or old if you have literacy issues, seek help. And we're fortunate that in our community we do have many, many opportunities available, including the Travis County for our workforce. But I do agree that you have to do more than offer the program. A lot of individuals are embarrassed by it and sort of continue and the literacy issues do also. But your value in the marketplace is much greater if you are literate. Good work, y'all. When is the spelling bee, by the way?
>> it's coming up I think April 17th, next spring. Thanks, it's good to see you again.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, August 29, 2007, 18:30 AM