Jacksonville Journey supports READ USA after federal cuts

Funding reductions from the federal Department of Government Efficiency would have eliminated literacy resources for Duval County third grade students weeks before a critical state assessment.

Jacksonville-based READ USA was notified April 25 that its federal AmeriCorps funding would be immediately terminated.

Thursday afternoon, the Jacksonville Journey Forward board announced it would allocate $30,000 to READ USA to help the nonprofit continue its services until the end of the 2024-25 academic year.

The money will be allocated to the city-operated Kids Hope Alliance, which will pass along the dollars to READ USA.

Jacksonville Journey Forward was told during a previous meeting that literacy and education are a way to prevent crime.

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READ USA used AmeriCorps dollars to fund its Literacy Tutoring program. The program partners teenage and college-aged students to provide daily one-on-one tutoring to elementary students in historically under-resourced neighborhoods, multilingual communities and military dependants.

Currently, tutors work with students in Arlington and Northwest Jacksonville as well as other neighborhoods.

AmeriCorps is a national service and volunteerism organization that often works in marginalized and forgotten communities and neighborhoods. It allocates more than $800 million in grants annually.

The Associated Press reports that the AmeriCorps state and national grant program distributed more than $540 million through formula-based distributions or competitive grants.

AmeriCorps also has a Volunteers in Service to America program that provided resources to nonprofits and public agencies to help eradicate poverty.

READ USA received funding from both the state and national grant program and the VISTA program.

Despite the financial respite, there remains a gap in READ USA’s budget. Its CEO, Rob Kelly, told the Journey Forward board Thursday that the nonprofit faces an immediate $178,000 deficit.

“That is an immediate assurance that we can pay for these last days of tutoring,” Kelly said of the Journey Forward dollars. “This is an assurance that we needed to say: ‘We are not going into debt, or we are not spending out of reserves.’ We are getting dollars that can pay for this programming.”

Once the 2025-26 academic year begins in August, READ USA faces a $510,000 funding gap and the loss of two positions funded exclusively through AmeriCorps anti-poverty dollars.

“It’s so disheartening that this is taking place,” said Journey Forward board member Betty Burney. “If there is a program in Duval County Public Schools that works, its READ USA.”

Kelly said READ USA has operated in more than 60 schools in Duval County over the last four years.

“We needed money just to finish out the school year,” Kelly said. “We are in the last few weeks of tutoring. We have 100 teen tutors and hundreds of kids who are being tutored by those teens.

“If we followed the termination notice verbatim, we would have stopped everything immediately. We didn’t think that was the right thing to do. We wanted to give those kids the last few weeks of tutoring. We wanted to give those teens the last few weeks of their job tutoring those kids.”

More than 80% of the elementary school students tutored by READ USA are at least one grade below reading level and nearly half are two years behind grade level.

Duval lags other large, metropolitan school districts in Florida when it comes to third grade literacy scores.

The Florida Department of Education’s third Florida Assessment of Student Thinking test for third grade students is slated for later this month.

The third progress monitoring test will determine whether third grade students are retained. It will also be used as the benchmark to compare Duval students to districts across Florida.

First-year Duval Schools Superintendent Christopher Bernier has repeatedly connected the success of third grade literacy proficiency with the district’s graduation rate.

Before Bernier arrived, researchers from Ohio State University concluded that READ USA’s method to address literacy gaps through teen tutoring is successful. A majority of the Duval County School Board members have applauded the Literacy Tutoring program’s impact on local teenagers and elementary-age students.

Kelly says READ USA wanted to sprint through the end of this school year to ensure Duval students are able to excel on this month’s state tests.

“If we would have stopped immediately, we would not have completed our own assessments as well,” Kelly said. “We want to complete our own assessments. We want to have our exit surveys with our teens. We want to give our teachers that work part time with us an opportunity to close out the program. And, for everyone to celebrate the accomplishments they have worked so hard for all year long.”