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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.
Evaluation & Results
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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.
Evaluation & Results
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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?