David Moore, Barbara Hammond, State Rep. Robbie Brackett and Liz woody-Remington. PHOTO BY JOSHUA KODIS

Local, state and national policymakers, researchers and practitioners attended an inaugural Moonshot Literacy Leadership Meet & Greet at the Boulevard Tennis Club hosted by the Learning Alliance and the School District of Indian River County, to discuss the work being undertaken to eliminate barriers to literacy.

“This is starting a conversation about what is happening in Indian River County,” said Barbara Hammond, TLA CEO and co-founder.

Hammond spoke about the ‘Policy to Practice to Performance’ model TLA and the school district have created through its public-private partnership to make Florida the Literacy Capital of the Nation, and to achieve its Moonshot Goal of 90 percent literacy by the end of third grade.

Founded by Hammond and Liz Remington, as they struggled to help their children who were having difficulty learning how to read, TLA has helped to turn the tide on illiteracy through afterschool, summer, in-school tutoring and teacher training in the Science of Reading.

As Hammond and Remington traveled around the country with philanthropist Ray Oglethorpe, former president of AOL, they discovered that low literacy was a national problem.

“We went and saw best practices and committed to bring them back to Indian River County,” Hammond recalled. The relationship they curated with then-School Superintendent Fran Adams has flourished over the past 13 years.

“Our personal journey became a collective journey,” said Hammond, commenting on the impressive gathering of educators and leaders. “We are working together within and outside our schools to create the ecosystem in which all our kids will thrive by transforming lives through literacy.”

Recognizing that literacy begins at birth, TLA’s Moonshot Families showcased how they are engaging families of young children through a partnership with Carnegie Hall’s Worldwide Lullaby Project.

“There’s nothing more powerful than a parent co-creating a lullaby with us to give to their child and create that language-rich, loving routine that’s going to build language skills,” said Hammond.

To demonstrate, musician Manny Moreira set MoonTune lyrics created by parents, teachers and others, to familiar tunes, dazzling the audience as they sang along.

School Superintendent David Moore said he was drawn to the position after talking with a team from the district and TLA about school transformation in the Miami-Dade County public schools.

“We spoke about an unwavering belief in the impact that adults can have on the lives of children. As a result of that belief, you can create a culture that helps define the systems and structure that need to be present to change the lives of kids. As we went through this day tour, the folks from the Learning Alliance were 100 percent warriors in that belief,” recalled Moore.

Since the 2018-2019 school year, Moore said that despite the pandemic, new standards and culture wars, they have “created a culture that allows every single student to succeed.”

Moore highlighted recent state test scores showing that third-grade reading scores in our county improved from 31st in 2019 to 12th in 2022 and are now ranked seventh out of 67 districts.

“The Learning Alliance has been here for 13 years, four different superintendents, six different school boards, and one of the things that we’ve realized is the community has to hold the goal,” said Hammond, before recognizing various individuals who have created policies, put them into practice and have demonstrated performance.

The following day, attendees could see the policies in action, visiting classrooms at TLA’s Moonshot School at Vero Beach Elementary and at Rosewood Elementary School, one of the top-performing schools in the state.

For additional information, visit TheLearningAlliance.org.

Photos by Joshua Kodis