Magnolia ISD’s district dyslexia program has been awarded $289,000 from the Texas Education Agency’s dyslexia grant. The grant aims to increase school districts’ capacity to better serve students with dyslexia and related disorders, according to an announcement from the district, and will be used by all MISD schools over the next two years.

The competitive TEA grant, which was approved by the 87th Texas Legislature, will include providing high-quality training to all teachers, including dyslexia-specific teachers; purchasing new curriculum for general education, special education and bilingual students with dyslexia; and hiring a districtwide dyslexia interventionist, according to the district’s announcement.

Sarah Harcrow, MISD's program specialist for dyslexia, said the grant had a lengthy application process but will meet the district’s needs to revamp its dyslexia program and meet new TEA demands from the updated Texas Dyslexia Handbook.

“We have a great program now, but what this grant is going to help us do is it's going to give more training to our teachers who are specialized in dyslexia and also give many of them the opportunity to get nationally certified,” Harcrow said in an interview. “And so that is just going to impact students with [teachers'] expert knowledge even more.”

There are 1,300 MISD students identified with dyslexia, according to the district’s announcement, and the grant will aid their learning as well as students identified with dyslexia in the future.