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2024 Kentucky Summative Assessment (KSA) Results for

Proficient Reading:

16%

|

Distinguished Reading:

5%

|

Proficient Math:

17%

|

Distinguished Math:

4%

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Millcreek Students Make Bookshelves at Fall Festival

Millcreek Students Make Bookshelves at Fall Festival

In one highlight of Millcreek Elementary’s Fall Festival, students and families built tabletop bookshelves to take home thanks to help from Home Depot. The festival, which was coordinated by the PTA and community supporters, kicked off Millcreek’s REAL Read School to Home reading program.

“Millcreek is dedicated to fostering a sense of curiosity and love of reading through our Readers and Leaders Literacy Program. Our teachers work diligently to teach the foundational literacy skills that support our students’ reading goals, while our community partners rally around us,” said Principal Jodi Johnson. “We want our students to know that there is a big wide world out there just waiting for them to join it, but until they are old enough to embark on adventures of their own, they can have them anytime and anywhere from inside the pages of a book.”

One way to promote literacy is to make sure children have books in their hands. The Scholastic REAL Read program enables elementary schools to send home four books with students over the course of the school year. “As a way to support our students’ growing collection, we came up with the idea of each student having a special place to keep their cherished books,” Johnson explained.

Millcreek reached out to Edith Bayless at the Richmond Road store and shared the dream of every student having their very own bookshelf at home – with a big ask of over 430 total. Bayless didn’t bat an eye, and they agreed on a design for a 16-inch bookshelf with perpendicular ends. She contacted a neighboring Home Depot to help fill the order and asked students at a local vocational school to prep the angled cuts on the blocks of wood. She also lined up several volunteers from each of the Lexington stores to assist at Millcreek’s Saturday festival. In addition, Home Depot supplied sponge brushes and kid-friendly paint so that each project would be as unique as each student.

As a grant recipient of the Pritchard Committee’s Community Schools Initiative, Millcreek focuses on establishing a strong connection with the greater community while solidifying friendships between families and partnerships with our families. “Education is everyone’s business, and we know that we are better when we lean on each other for support,” Johnson said.

a dad and young son work to paint their bookshelves together
a Millcreek staffer greets a woman helping a little girl with her shelf
two women in headscarves help a tiny girl with her sponge paintbrush
two young sisters paint their bookshelves in multi-color stripes
bearded man with smile uses a screwdriver to work on a bookshelf
table full of multi-color  bottles of paint with children in the background
Principal Jodi Johnson helps two sisters put their bookshelves together
two older elementary boys paint their shelves
two Black girls paint their shelves, with completed projects drying behind them
crowds mill around outside the front entrance during the festival
a young girl ponders her tiny pumpkin as a man watches over her shoulder
three young sisters enjoy popsicles outside the school
a handful of students at a table cutting out pumpkins on orange construction paper
two Millcreek staffers set up the dunking booth with red slime
a mother and daughter string colorful beads