This school year the Johnson County Public School System received the 2019 Quality Improvement Grant that is aimed towards the goal of making children of this county more ready for school when they enter Kindergarten. 

Robin Salyer, the head start director for Johnson County, was the main person who wrote this grant, and now that we have received the grant, she is already putting a plan in motion to make children better prepared for their academic careers. In order to help make this grant achieve its highest potential, Salyer has created a school readiness council that consists of some partners throughout the school system along with some community partners. These council members include: Robin Salyer, Thom Cochran, Stephanie Rice, Tracy Ousley, Heather Butcher, Lisa Salyers, and Traci Spencer. With the money received in this grant, these council members plan on hosting two school readiness events at each elementary school. These events will consist of Reading and Mathematics activities for the children to partake in, while the parents can listen to an informative session on how to better prepare their kids to be more school ready. These informative sessions will continually change subject, so it is encouraged that parents visit as many informative sessions as they can. 

As an added bonus, each student who attends will receive a free book to take home with them. The schools will also invest in a book vending machine for every elementary school. These vending machines will consist of books of all interest levels and it will be ran off of a token system. In this token system, students will be rewarded with a token for doing something the teacher sees as good. With this token kids can vend a book. By hosting these events and installing these machines, the Johnson County Public School System is hoping to draw attention to different things that parents can be made aware of to help better prepare their children. 

One community partner Lisa Salyers who is representing Little Light Academy said, “ We are pleased and excited to be working with the Johnson County School System on obtaining this grant to make our children Kindergarten ready in the near future. It brings so much more to each child and the excitement for them will be unreal.”