Tahoe – Truckee Receives 2015 Pacesetter Honors from the National Campaign for Grade Level Reading

Tags: Collaborations, Youth Development

April 2016: Tahoe – Truckee has been honored as a 2015 Pacesetter by the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading for making measurable progress on eliminating barriers faced by children from low-income families on the path to becoming proficient readers.

“Pacesetter Honors are among the highest awards presented by the Campaign,” said Ralph Smith, the managing director of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. “We are very proud of Tahoe -Truckee and the numerous organizations and individuals behind them for joining forces and working tirelessly to uplift children and families. They remind us that we are seeing great progress and real results all across the country.”

This recognition is based on the outstanding efforts and progress made in addressing summer learning loss, chronic absenteeism for our scholars, and the fact that our community has been extremely successful in increasing the overall reading and learning by our students. Tahoe Truckee Reads (TTR) is a community effort led by Excellence in Education to improve grade level literacy by working with local schools and families to increase reading proficiency in our community using three strategies: School Readiness, Avoiding Summer Learning Loss and School Attendance. TTR is a collaborative effort with a collective impact approach which provides the infrastructure to support TTR partners and their shared vision for change.

Tahoe – Truckee received the 2012 All American City Award, and has since received Pacesetter Honors in 2013, 2014 and, now, 2015. In 2013, we were honored to have Dr. Ralph Smith, Senior Vice President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Managing Director of the National Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, to present the award to Dr. Rob Leri, TTUSD Superintendent. Read the story here.

Third grade reading proficiency is a critical milestone toward high school graduation and success later life because it marks the transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” National tests show that two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders (four-fifths of whom are from low-income families) are not reading proficiently. Students who have not mastered reading by that time are more likely to drop out of high school and struggle throughout their lives.

“If we’re going to close the achievement gap, we need mobilized communities – like these Pacesetters – working with schools, city agencies, nonprofits, civic leaders and parents to focus on third-grade reading,” Smith added. “These Pacesetter communities inspire us to believe that great things can happen when all of us support parents, care providers and educators as they work to ensure more hopeful futures for our children.”

Pacesetter Honors have been awarded to communities and partners in the Campaign network since 2012. View the complete list of honorees. This year, 38 Pacesetter communities were honored at an annual awards luncheon during the Campaign’s 2016 Funder-to-Funder Huddle in Washington, D.C., on April 7. Each Pacesetter received a certificate and special recognition banner to showcase their award throughout their communities.

Read the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading “Midpoint Snapshots” to learn more. 

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Tahoe Truckee Reads Steering Committee

Tahoe Truckee Excellence in Education Foundation

Tahoe Truckee Unified School District

Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation

Community Collaborative of Tahoe Truckee

Nevada and Placer County Health and Human Services

First Five Nevada County

First Five Placer County