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   Cat Chat Café
   News from Palatka High School 
   in Putnam County 

Palatka High School Reading Coaches, Sandy Sharp and Diana Wilson have successfully transformed a room off the school library as a modern and hip Reading Place with a coffee house type of atmosphere. Students are able to bring a book or pick something to read from within the Cat Chat Café. While there, they may purchase cocoa, tea, coffee and breakfast snacks just like at a coffee house for a nominal price of 50 cents. The Cat Chat Café is open Wednesdays the hour immediately before school begins.

PHS staff was not sure how it would be accepted by the students, but the fact that so many students are willing to come to school early AND read proves the success. Every week, the Cat Chat Café is full to capacity with young minds reading and talking about books. Students can sit at bistro tables to discuss their current readings or sit along the wall at individual seating areas that can be grouped in twos or threes. It is exciting to see the students so enthusiastic about reading.

Principal Karen Hughes is quick to point out that there are lots of good things happening at the school and this is a great example. It is just one more initiative that Palatka High School has in place surrounding reading. It complements the ongoing Sophie’s Choice reading group that Media Specialists, Sophie Ducote and Katie Purcell, sponsor and the Reading Counts! program that has been in place for a while now. The artwork on the walls of the Cat Chat Café was contributed solely by the students in art classes at PHS. It really adds to the feel of coffee house and adds to the warm inviting atmosphere. Adolescent books were donated by a local bookstore in Palatka.

Quote of the Day
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“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main. . .and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.”

~ Walt Disney

as quoted in Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Times, 1997, p. 77

• a statewide system for providing literacy professional development.
• an information clearinghouse for literacy research and practice.
• a development center for educator professional development materials.
• a linkage for school districts, institutions of higher education, community organizations that have a vested interest in literacy and reading excellence.
• a provider of Florida Reading Endorsement in-service to aid Florida's reading teachers in acquiring reading endorsement

Although FLaRE remains a K-12 project, as a part of FLaRE’s 2007-2008 Scope of Work, FLaRE will provide year-long, job-embedded professional development to select school reading/literacy coaches and teachers. In particular, each FLaRE Coordinator will:

• work with 10 -12 select school reading leadership teams including reading/literacy coaches to implement a proposed year-long syllabus for professional development, and
• co-teach students on a weekly basis for professional growth and to provide observation lessons;

and FLaRE will:

• provide a proposed year-long syllabus for professional development on effective reading/literacy instruction and coaching utilizing a central text and FLaRE materials, and
• identify school observation classrooms utilizing effective and efficient instructional practices.