third grade

We haven't done this in a few weeks, but I think we're gonna start doing it more regularly.

It's Third Grade Thursday.

Hmm.

So you will call with your sports point, and we will give you a third-grade level question, and you, we will see if you know the answer, and then you're what? You're as smart as a third-grader, I guess?

Well, I did-

Oh

... well, it's third grade.

Okay.

So, Sheil, you know, your whole brand, and I appreciate it because I believe in your brand, you are a smart guy, right? I mean, you are a smart guy.

So today, we're doing Third Grade Thursday, and we're asking everyone a third-grade-level question to see how they do.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

right.

So hit Sheil with a

third grade Thursday.

Yes.

He just wasn't.

Derek, do you want a third grade Thursday question?

Hey, can I ask you one quick question, Spike? So with that ABS stuff, you get two of those

a game? Well, if you get it right, then you keep the two.

I'm like, wow, what if it's in the eighth inning? Yeah.

He just wasted one.

I mean, I had my sound kind of down, but I'll do the third grade question.

I'm kind of nervous, man, because I don't

And so taking away a barrier wherever we can is something that we're always trying to strive for at COTA.

Garth, as you know, United Way is solely focused on Success by Third Grade.

How does Success by Third Grade connect with COTA?

Well, I think as we've been talking about, you know, Success by Third Grade is really focused on those non-academic barriers, and I think a huge one is transportation.

You have to be able to get to school.

You have to be able...

It's not, you know, kind of a quirk of a sample or a quirk of a time period of what we were seeing.

Why aren't the K through third grade literacy reforms that have worked so well, why aren't they just carrying forward? What's different about a student who's still struggling when they arrive in fourth grade?

Yeah, so I think there are kind of two things to keep in mind about the policy implications here.

First is that those K-3 literacy reforms, many of them in many states didn't get implemented kind of until 22 to 2024.

So they may not have benefited from those policies just because many of them are still kind of in the rollout phase.

And then the second is that those policies really are about kind of reforming how reading, learning to read is taught for younger grades.

They usually kind of stop around third grade.

And if you're a struggling reader in fourth or fifth and sixth grade, the kind of policy changes Like laws and implementation changes won't necessarily affect those students, which is why I think many, many states have now kind of caught on to the fact that like it's super important to focus on K-3, but it's not sufficient that you're going to miss some students who kind of still were not able to get to proficiency in those early grades where more resources were being thrown.