Vantage Learning announced today that it will award the Harrison County School District with a Vantage Learning Foundation Grant Award in the amount of $115,200. The grant will provide comprehensive professional development training and online instructional tools to help students improve their writing skills.

As part of the Vantage Learning Keystone Partner Program, Harrison County will receive educational technology funding to employ the instructional writing and assessment program MY Access!®. The web-based tool, used throughout the country to build better writers, will assist approximately 2,400 students in nine schools across Harrison County to prepare for the Mississippi Writing Assessment.

The Grant will also be used to implement professional development in the district, in order to build capacity and sustainability among the faculty. Dr. Judy Boyd, Director of Assessment for the Mississippi Curriculum Test, said she expects the district’s students and teachers to greatly benefit from the technology.

“I anticipate a positive impact on students by growing their writing abilities,” said Boyd. “Likewise, I hope to see a positive impact on teachers by enabling them to provide direct instruction centered on individual student’s needs.”

The MY Access!® program provides immediate feedback to motivate students to improve their writing proficiency, enables teachers to provide individualized instruction in all content areas, and has been independently shown to improve test scores.

The Keystone Partner Program initiative seeks to identify and benefit districts that are committed to literacy and who will use writing as a means to drive student achievement across all areas of study using MY Access! and other Vantage Learning educational solutions.

The Grant will be awarded to the school district on Wednesday, August 31 during a short presentation at the district’s Central Office in Gulfport, MS.