NNCSBoard Awarded $25K Under Title IV

NORFOLK - The Norwood-Norfolk Central School District has been awarded just under $25,000 in federal Title VI funding from the United States Education Department since one of every five students on the district comes from a family with an income below the federal poverty line.

Superintendent Elizabeth A. Kirnie announced the funding at Tuesday night's school board meeting. The funding is available for districts where at least 20 percent of children age 5 to 17 are from families with incomes below the poverty line.

She said the district will use the funding for professional development to address the needs of students needing remediation in English Language Arts and math.

"This Title VI B funding is going to help the teachers in providing those services," she said.

Norwood-Norfolk must first develop a plan to show how the grant dollars will be utilized before the funding os sent to the district.

The district received the funding two years ago, but did not last year, Ms. Kirnie said. The federal government determines a district's eligibility each year, she said.

"Nothing has changed for us," she said. "It is a little difficult to explain why we were awarded the money this year but I'm not going to argue."

She said recent changes in the state's assessment test scoring mean many more students in the district will be in need of remediation because of higher state testing standards.

In Norwood-Norfolk, for example, 32 students who took the fifth-grade English Language Arts assessment and 32 who took the math assessment for that grade have fallen into the area of needing extra assistance.

State officials are allowing for a transitional time period so those students won't be required to use academic intervention services next school year, but it will be a requirement in the future. However, Ms. Kirnie said the grant funding will likely allow the district to begin to provide those services for the upcoming year.