ZHS Students Receive Award From Barbara Bush Foundation

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy is a group that attempts to help young students learn reading skills by paring them with older students. On Tuesday, three Zanesville High School students received awards from the Foundation for their work as mentors.

Representatives from the Barbara Bush Foundation were on hand to present awards to ZHS students Lonnie Chason, Alex Ribble, and Kassandra Settles. The mentors meet twice a week, for one hour with students at Zane Grey Elementary to help them improve their reading skills. Steven Foreman, who is the Director of Special Programs for the school district said this program has done wonders.

“To see what young people will do when the cheerleader, the football player, the drama club member, whoever it is, that big high school kid, comes in a lot of things happen,” said Foreman. “I’ve seen young people push themselves further than they ever would without their mentor.”

35 high school students are in the program but Foreman says the three selected for the award went above and beyond the criteria. This was the first year the program was implemented in Zanesville Schools and Foreman says the progress of the elementary students has been remarkable.

“We can benchmark different times in the program so that we can see progress. We implemented some software programs that monitor so they can check in and check their reading levels. We’ve seen those skyrocket,” said Foreman.

Foreman went on to say that he hopes this program is used for years to come in Zanesville City Schools.