40 USA the Patriot News

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The Patriot-News812 Market Street

Harrisburg, PA 17101 USA

Daily-100,000 Sunday-150,000

SchoolHouse News is a unique Newspaper in Education collaboration

between an urban school district and daily newspaper that encompasses

learning through reading at school and reinforcement at home.

NIE Category Susan L. Anthony


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Development2006

Research from the Newspaper Association of

America Foundation indicates that students

using newspapers in school do 10% better on

standardized reading comprehension tests.

Urban students do 30% better.

Additional NAAF research reveals that six

out of ten young people with exposure to

newspapers in classrooms and homes are

more likely to be regular newspaper readers

as adults.

While only several newspapers across the country

have NIE Home Delivery programs, The Patriot-Newsin Education program believed that this sort of

program had potential in making measurable and

sustainable differences in lifelong literacy and

newspaper readership.

The SchoolHouse News program was created.


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July 20Staff from The Patriot-News Department ofEducational Readership Initiatives attended the

Newspaper Association of America Foundation NIEconference in St. Louis to meet with representativesof two newspapers with NIE home delivery

programs.

August 7Harrisburg School District appointed an

instructional facilitator, who is also a NIE advisorycommittee member and 2006 Council for PublicEducation Teacher of the Year, to work with ThePatriot-News to develop the SchoolHouse News

program.

August 21The circulation department conducted a feasibility

study to analyze student home addresses andparticipating schools based on bussing. Data wasused to verify non-existent subscription penetration.Circulation also studied delivery options to includedaylight delivery to potentially unsafe locations, i.e.

public housing, where newspapers were not currentlybeing delivered.

Development


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September 7Circulation and business departments discussedaccounting and billing procedures to reflect NIE homedelivery funding and possible change of addressnotification. School officials noted that students canchange residence within the district several timesduring the school year, especially during wintermonths.

October 9The Patriot-News project coordinator started to

purchase incentive prizes for students who

completed home activities.

September1The SchoolHouse News pilot program was

approved by ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation).

Development


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October18More than 850 books, valued at more than $3,400,

were obtained from Harrisburgs Mayors

Commission on Literacy through the Tri-County

Opportunities Industrialization Center. Book titleswere chosen based on appropriate reading levels,

inclusion of diversity, emphasis on non-fiction texts

and relevance to urban children.

October12

Materials to secure sponsorship funding were

distributed to classified, retail and national

advertising staff.

November 1-8Harrisburg School Districts instructional

facilitator met individually with the teachers

who were selected to be in the program.

November 15Teachers asked parents to sign up for the

SchoolHouse News home delivery

program at parent-teacher conferences.

Development


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November29The Patriot-News hosted an after school professionaldevelopment session ten participating educators.Pennsylvania Department of Education Act 48continuing education hours were credited. Dinner was

provided. The program was explained and materialsdistributed for review and comment. TeacherFrequently Asked Questions was reviewed.

November27The Patriot-News packaged program materialsinto plastic storage containers for ease of transportand organization. Each educator received acontainer with folders for individual students anddrafts of home activities.

Teachers selected dates for their

schools Family Fun Nights to be held in

the spring.

Development


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Curricula on newspaper use,

Preparing for Pennsylvania State

Standards Assessment Using the

Newspaperand Creating a

Classroom Newspaperweredistributed to educators.

Each educator selected at least one

weekday for classroom newspaper

delivery: MondaysPatriot-NewsincludesPARADEmagazine for

schools; Tuesday includes the school

editions only NIE Page with serialized

story; Thursday includes The Mini

Page. Teachers were also offered the

option of participating in Fastcar

Geography, NIE WEEKS with Design

an Ad, Black History Month andreceive the Senators Baseball section.


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Each educator received acontainer with folders forindividual students and drafts

of home activities. In additionto 18 newspaper-based activitysheets, a journaling activitywas included as well as severalnewspaper scavenger hunts forreluctant learners translatedinto Spanish.

Development


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January 16 , 2007The Patriot-News project coordinator

delivered boxes of incentives and prizes

to classrooms.

January 26The Patriot-News project coordinator began

sending weekly e-mails of encouragement and

information to participating teachers.

December12In mid-December, educators receivedmaster sets of activities and wereencouraged to select activities mostappropriate for their students andcurriculum. Schools were responsible forreproduction.

D

ecember22

Parents met the deadline to register for

SchoolHouse News delivery.

Development


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January 29The SchoolHouse News program began

with delivery ofThe Patriot-News to

classrooms while home subscribers

received daily and Sunday newspapers.

January 29- May 29The Patriot News project coordinator

visited classrooms and collected

completed home activities on a monthly

basis.

Completed home activities were filed inindividual student folders at The

Patriot-News. E-mails reminders were

sent to teachers of students who were

behind on submitting home activities.

Implementation


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The Patriot-News project coordinator

updated student address records with

circulation on a reguar basis in order to

keep home delivery information accurate.

Some children move frequently in cold

weather because their families are

economically deprived

March 8-May 2Family Literacy Nights were held on March

8 at Steele School, March 13 at Lincoln

School, April 11 at Ben Franklin School,

April 17 at Foose School, April 25 at

Downey School and May 2 at Rowland

School. May 29The SchoolHouse News pilot

program newspaper delivery is

completed.

Implementation


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May 31

The Patriot-News project

coordinator e-mailed

evaluation forms to

participating teachers to

be returned by June 8.

Page one of fivepageevaluation sent to teachers.


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Sponsorship

Eight sponsors contributed more than $2,500.

More than $5,170 was contributed to SchoolHouse

News via donations solicited by One to One

Tele-Response Center, Inc.

Sponsors were acknowledged in newspaper ads,thank you letters and certificates of appreciation

signed by student participants.

Funding was made to The Patriot-News.

Contributions came through 501(c)3 institutions

including the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association

Foundation, Harrisburg School District Foundation

and the Fund for Enhancing Communities,who provided funding to The Patriot-News.

Newspaper ad


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Goals

2. Encourage civic engagement.

3. Improve media literacy.

1. Improve reading comprehension.

4. Encourage lifelong literacy.

5. Increase newspaper readership.

Success was assessed by Harrisburg School District reading comprehension tests administered quarterly.

Harrisburg School District is an urban public school system with an economically disadvantaged minority

population. Requested by the City of Harrisburg, the state legislature empowered a Board of Control separate from

Harrisburg's school board to administer the district.

240 students ages ten and 11 with ten educators in six elementary schools participated in a pilot program for an

18-week semester.

206 families signed up for home delivery. No student was excluded from classroom or family night participation

due to lack of participation in home delivery.


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A wall-sized classroom progress

chart with stickers were provided

for home activity record keeping.

Incentives, including stickers, pens,

books,markers and erasers, wereprovided to educators to distribute to

students as home activity benchmarks

were achieved at weeks 1, 6, 12 and

18. Students could earn up to five

prizes.

The Harrisburg Senators baseball team

provided admission tickets for studentscompleting 18 home activities. The

Senators also contributed a gift for each

classroom for a special drawing based

upon completion of all home activities.

Schools

Marketing


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A program participation timeline was

provided to educators and a

Family Frequently Asked Questions

was provided for distribution to

participating families.

Marketing


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The Patriot-News provided teachers with

family sign-up sheets (personalized for each

teacher) in English and Spanish. To

encourage program participation and assurefamily sign-up, educators presented program

materials to parents during November report

card conferences. Harrisburg School District

administrators indicated that report card

conferences were the most successful

strategy for interaction with parents.

Home

Marketing


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Educators presented program materials to

families that had not yet registered again

during January report card conferences.

A Family Reminder about newspaper

delivery was provided to teachers to send

home prior to start-up of home delivery in

January.

Family Change of Residence Forms were

given to teachers who monitored and

reported on occurrences on a regular

basis in order to keep home deliveryinformation accurate.

Home

Marketing


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Parent sign up sheets and activities

were offered in Spanish as well as

English.

Marketing


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Description of Programme


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HomeActivities


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HomeActivities


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HomeActivities


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HomeActivities


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HomeActivities


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HomeActivities


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HomeActivities


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HomeActivities


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Description of Programme

Families entered each balloon festooned school

lobby at 5:30 p.m. and were greeted byPatriot-News and school staff.

Family Literacy Nights

Students and their families participating in SchoolHouse News were

invited to Family Literacy Nights at their schools.

The Patriot-News worked with teachers and principals todetermine event scheduling and spatial logistics. Cafeteria/all-purpose rooms were favored rather than classrooms.

Arrangements were made for child care for young siblings, anda $50 stipend was provided per event to caregivers. Schoolcustodians were given $50 per event to set up, clean up andrearrange tables.


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The Patriot-News provided an

invitational flyer with a

registration coupon that was

sent home with students in

order to assure an adequatecount for meals and materials.


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A hot meal consisting of macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, carrots,green beans, applesauce, cookies and beverages was served.


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In the activity, Getting to Know Us, each family was given a paper grocery bag, scissors and glue

stick. Working as a family, they cut words or pictures from the newspaper that shared something

about their family. These items were glued to the outside of the bag. If they found things that they

didn't want others to know, they placed them inside the bag. A family spokesperson explained the

significance of their choices to the entire group. Prizes of pencils and erasers were distributed to all

participants.


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The activity Movers and Shakers encouraged physical activity with the newspaper and

required an ability to follow written and verbal directions.


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The final activity involved arts and crafts as adults made newspaper hats with their children.

The evening ended at 7 p.m. with a balloon giveaway. Students received ruler/calculators for

attending.


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Evaluation & Results

School district administrators consider research data corresponding to

SchoolHouse News to be highly significant. Through pre- and post-testing,

reading comprehension scores improved between 10 to 30% by participating

students. Students not involved showed declines or improvement of two to

five percent. Students participating in SchoolHouse News also moved frombelow basic to proficient levels for reading. Comprehension was measured in

analysis, interpretation and use of non-fiction or informational text.

More than 11,300 newspapers were provided to 240 students in

SchoolHouse News classrooms through vacation donation funding.More than 21,424 daily newspapers and 3,502 Sunday newspapers

were delivered to homes without prior subscription history.


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Of 206 students, 130 attained a 100% completion rate

by returning all 18 family activities. Thirty-six

students completed 14 activities. (A 75% family

activity completion rate is required for Auditing

Bureau of Circulation (ABC) compliance in counting

home delivered newspapers.) District administratorswere extremely pleased with this rate of return.

A total of 230 students and family members

attended six literacy nights. School administrators

indicated that attendance was above average for

after-school family events especially during late

winter and early spring when weather improves.



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For additional promotional opportunities, The Patriot-News

photographed students in SchoolHouse News using the

newspaper. Photographs were used in promotional

corporate sponsorship flyers, NIE house ads and

informational flyers. Patriot-News photo release permission

slips were authorized by the school district and signed by

parents.

Three families opted to subscribe with payment to

the newspaper following SchoolHouse News.

Letters promoting continuation of delivery included

information on an NIE summer readership initiative

for young people to earn admissions to

HERSHEYPARK, a local amusement park.



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Provides constant interaction with current issues through newspapers.

The program was fun and gave kids an opportunity to see the

world around them.

Children appear to have acquired an appreciation of thenewspaper. They held individual discussions on items ofinterest.

Teacher EvaluationsExcerpts indicate the following particular strengths:

SchoolHouse News gave variety to our normal days schedule.

It allowed my students to learn how to use newspapers to support their opinion.

It gave my students fun ways to have their parents help them at home.


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Given the success of SchoolHouse News, Harrisburg School District and The Patriot-News will include all

530 ten and 11 year olds in the next 18-week program for 2008

Whats Next?

Documents

40 USA the Patriot News