Civil Municipal - Oct 2023

208 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 10 District is making it a priority to engage children and families as early as possible. “We have done a great job internally, in our district, focusing on an acronym we call SWIRL which encompasses speaking, writing, illustrating, reading, and listening, and letting that consume our class time, giving students opportunities to get better at each of those five things,” acknowledges Longgrear. “However, what we haven’t done is we haven’t carried that out to the community.” A recent meeting of the statewide literacy council brought this realization forward and led to the formation of an internal team, which Longgrear hopes will bring more awareness to the community of the importance of emphasizing the SWIRL initiatives in the home, from the third trimester until the child enters school, and beyond. Educators in the Candler County School District are dedicated to creating individualized education plans, engaging each student at their own level, and conducting assessments to pinpoint their next steps in the learning process. Dr. Jordan emphasizes, “I want to commend our elementary school, in particular on that early learning piece of it. They do an outstanding job of having those interventions in place for literacy, but also math, and focusing on each individual child. Also, the collaboration that takes place between the intervention team, and the general ed classroom teacher, to integrate into the regular classroom environment, that’s where we see our highest impact coming from.” Candler County School District- A Point of Pride and a Place of Choice in the Community Branding and marketing have an important role within the Candler County School District. Broni Gainous, Director of Public Relations highlights the efforts of the marketing and communications team, sharing that news and information is dispersed through local and online media, as well as social media