WQXE News
Reading education efforts at Elizabethtown Independent Schools are receiving some additional support.
Panther Academy, Helmwood Heights Elementary School, and Morningside Elementary School have each been selected as recipients of the state’s Read to Achieve Grant.
According to a release from EIS, the Read to Achieve Grant is “a competitive state award that recognizes schools doing transformative work in early literacy.” The grants are awarded by the Kentucky Department of Education to schools that have demonstrated “a commitment to evidence-based reading instruction and meaningful intervention for students.”
Each school will receive $70,000 each of the next two years. EIS says the grants will elevate schoolwide multi-tiered systems of support to help ensure students from kindergarten through third grade receive timely, data-informed reading instruction. Each school has also committed matching funds and long-term sustainability beyond the grant period as an investment in long-term change over short-term success.
About 150 schools across the commonwealth are selected each Read to Achieve grant cycle. Visit the Kentucky Department of Education’s website for more information.
Much of the snow and ice from the January winter storms has melted off, but in its wake the winter weather left an additional hazard.
“Potholes, of course, are a year-round thing, but it becomes even more evident after a winter storm, especially one with the extreme amount of cold temperatures we’ve had and the amount of moisture that fell,” said Hardin County Government Communications Officer Brian Walker. “Snow removal efforts and ice being removed from the road with the heavy machinery and those plows can and does create more damage to the roads and potholes start showing up. We’re actually starting to see those a little earlier this year than we normally would.”
Walker says the county repairs potholes found on county roads every Monday and Tuesday, with work broken down into five zones. If you find a pothole, you can report it to the county’s road department.
“There’s a phone number, and you can easily reach out to us 24 hours a day, even on a holiday, at 270-951-0951,” Walker said. “It’ll be a text exchange where it will help you to specify where it is and what you’re reporting. You can also go to our website, www.hardincountyky.gov, and there’s a button there called ‘Report an Issue.’”
Issues with state roads should be reported to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, and issues with city roads should be directed to the respective municipality.
Baptist Health Hardin President Rob Ramey said during the Hardin County Chamber of Commerce’s February membership luncheon Wednesday that in recent years the focus of his comments has been the hospital, but he said more focus is needed on community health and wellness.
“As a hospital president, you may not expect to hear me say this, but I want to keep more patients out of the hospital,” Ramey said. “We need to start focusing a little bit more of our resources on not caring for the sick, but keeping people healthy, and community health and community wellness is more than what happens inside the four walls of the hospital.”
Ramey said Baptist Health Hardin is working to reduce healthcare deserts by providing more access to care, including the new Cecilia Mediplex facility set to open this spring and the new ER and urgent care center set to open in Radcliff this fall. Beyond new facilities and improvements within existing facilities, the organization looks to community partnerships to address other disparities in care.
“Ideas like partnering with Feeding America to address patients who might be experiencing food insecurities,” Ramey said. “It’s working with other organizations, like we recently announced a new Community Health and Wellness Fund with support from the Cecilian Bank. It’s working collaboratively around our community with our leaders to ensure that we’re continuing to address the unmet needs within our community.”
Baptist Health Hardin partnered with the Lincoln Trail District Health Department on a Community Health Assessment. Ramey said the top three identified needs in the most recent survey are mental health, substance use, and access to care. Ramey also said the organization partners with area schools each year on a Youth Risk Behavior Survey to identify stressors impacting area students.
“It’s something that we use to help really target the efforts that we’re taking,” Ramey said. “It’s part of why, then, we continue to have anti-vaping education within the school systems because that is a huge need that we continue to see on the risk behavior surveys.”
Visit the Baptist Health Hardin website for more information on community health initiatives, and find the Community Health Assessment dashboard on the Lincoln Trail District Health Department’s website.