Texans Can Academies have received a three-year grant totaling $2.1 million, roughly $724,000 a year from the U.S. Department of Education. The Texans Can - Project Read2 Next Generation: "Reading to Enhance Academic Design and Development - Next Generation" will fund a program to include five literacy coaches, professional training for teaching staff and collaboration with educational partners. The coaches will provide literacy support for students at all 14 Texans Can Academy campuses across the state of Texas.

“We anticipate approximately 100 Pre-K students and 5,300 high school students will participate in and benefit from the program, and are extremely excited to get this program underway,” said Chastity Lopez, Project Director for the Grant and the Instructional Specialist - Curriculum & Instruction for Texans Can Academies.     

The literacy coaches will provide students with intensive and individualized intervention through small groups and one-on-one assistance, with an emphasis on improving reading fluency and comprehension. The literacy coaches will also work with teachers through professional learning communities to share best practices and provide coaching.

The literacy coaches and other Texans Can staff will have opportunities to collaborate with educational partners, such as Lead4ward and Tarrant County College, to best align literacy and STEM initiatives to the state standards.

This grant money will also help promote family literacy through annual free book distributions to Texans Can Pre-K and high school students.

Two programs are integrated into Texans Can Academies curriculum that bring innovative solutions to challenges students face in learning. Cognitive Development Through Reading Across the Curriculum focuses on increasing reading fluency, thinking through text-based material, and writing in response to reading. Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment was developed by Dr. Reuven Feuerstein and is used with global success in both education and industry. This process uses the mediated learning experience to strengthen deficient cognitive functions and move the students from a state where the acquisition and mastery of academic content was previously difficult to a state of being a learner who is more capable of successfully engaging rigorous and truly challenging academic content.

Texans Can Academies provides an educational route for youth and non-traditional students in need, who would otherwise not have the means to receive a proper high school education. Many of the students who attend the schools experience barriers to their education such as poverty, little access to basic resources, early parenthood and more. Today, Texans Can has 14 campuses located in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio and has impacted the lives of over 151,000 students. 

Texans Can Academies -- Graduating thinkers by giving them a second chance with help from people like you! For more information, please visit www.texanscan.org.