Miranda Restovic
Director
504.620.2486
Christopher Robert
Assistant Director
504.620.2639
Adrienne McFaul, Ph.D.
Assistant Director
504.523.4252
[email protected]
Tara Zapp Assistant Director 504.620.2627 Faye Flanagan
Senior Consultant Holly Bell, Ph.D. Education Consultant
504.620.2627
Deatrice Green
Special Projects Coordinator
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PRIME TIME Global Citizenship Project Update
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Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH),
PRIME TIME's 10th national expansion project, "It's a Small World After All: Global Citizenship Education for the 21st Century", is slated to conclude by the end of 2014. The NEH recently featured "It's a Small World After All" on its website. Click here to read the article!
Sub-grants were awarded to the Arizona Humanities Council, Humanities Washington (Washington State), the Illinois Humanities Council, the Kentucky Humanities Council, and the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. After planning and conducting their own local training workshops, our partner organizations began program implementation for fall 2013 and will continue through summer 2014. To date, nineteen programs have been completed; reaching approximately 1,050 individuals throughout the partner states. By project's end, twenty-two programs will have been completed.
A goal of national expansion grants is to help seed sustainable humanities programming for vulnerable families across the nation. To that end, PRIME TIME, Inc. and partner organizations plan to sustain the program after the grant period ends. For example, Humanities Washington (a third year partner) hosted an independently funded and planned a on April 26 - 27 training workshop for nearly thirty team members who will direct at least five self-funded programs in fall 2014.
The PRIME TIME staff thanks its national expansion partners for their work and looks look forward to enhancing these partnerships in the coming months. Stay tuned for more updates on the conclusion of the "It's a Small World After All" project in early 2015.
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The PRIME TIME Preschool Pilot Turns 3!
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 With a generous 3-year grant from Baptist Community Ministries (BCM), the PRIME TIME Preschool pilot has launched as a school readiness program for children ages 3-5 and their families in New Orleans. Based on the empirically proven PRIME TIME model, PRIME TIME Preschool introduces young children to the humanities and literature in a way that is developmentally appropriate and engaging. Through modeling and participation, parents of preschoolers learn many of the same skills that are garnered through the traditional PRIME TIME program: how to book-share with their children; how to ask questions that encourage critical thinking; how to make reading enjoyable and relevant; and how to encourage children to internalize a love of learning.
2013-2014 Implementing Sites
Choice Lafayette Academy Charter School
Kids of Excellence Child Care Center
McMillian's First Child Care Center
Rainbow Academy
Urban League of GNO; Clarence Barney Head Start
During Year 1 of the pilot, five sites completed ten programs. Pilot sites implemented an additional ten programs during Year 2. The immediate feedback from both providers and participants indicate a great appreciation for the program, along with confidence that participation is making a difference in school readiness for the children. Outcomes from the criterion-based assessment used to measure changes in expressive and receptive vocabulary among participating preschoolers show that, on average, of the 58 students assessed during fall 2013, each child gained 2.8 words from first to last session.
Recently, PRIME TIME Preschool and its impact on families were highlighted as part of the LEH's GiveNOLA Day. View the video!
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PRIME TIME Announces Fall 2014 Louisiana Sites
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 PRIME TIME Family Reading Time continues to benefit families throughout Louisiana this fall! The nationally recognized family literacy program will reach sixteen parishes through the end of fall, with more than 1,100 participants expected to attend. Through partnerships with school districts, foundations, libraries, and corporations, PRIME TIME Family Reading Time will take place in these parishes: Ascension, Bienville, Caddo, Calcasieu, East Baton Rouge, Evangeline, Iberville, Jackson, Jefferson Davis, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lafourche, Orleans, Ouachita, Point Coupee, Sabine.
Additionally, nineteen PRIME TIME Preschool programs will occur in Caddo, Lafayette, and Orleans parishes. Approximately 400 Louisiana residents will participate in this humanities-based, early childhood education program.
Additional programs may be added to the Fall 2014 schedule. For more information on PRIME TIME, click here or email PRIME TIME staff.
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PRIME TIME Welcomes the Fort Worth Library as its Newest Affiliate!
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The Fort Worth Library (FWL) will implement its first PRIME TIME Family Reading Time program during the summer of 2014. After several months of researching programming options to fit its community's needs, library foundation members chose PRIME TIME as its newest family literacy/community outreach program. PRIME TIME will be added to FWL's established menu of successful family engagement programs.
"The Fort Worth Library and the Fort Worth Public Library Foundation collaborated on the selection of PRIME TIME as a pilot program based on its alignment with the library's early literacy programs and PRIME TIME's potential to build upon the community's interest and attendance in these programs. PRIME TIME's focus on families reading together supports the concept that families are important participants in the learning process for their children," remarked Leslie Oliver, Foundation president.
The Fort Worth Library has committed to completing three programs before the end of 2014. The PRIME TIME staff and consultants recently provided on-site training for PRIME TIME project director and Fort Worth Library Youth and Teen Services Coordinator, Cynthia Gray and a group of fifteen library professionals who will help to implement these programs.
We are both excited and proud that the Fort Worth Library Foundation chose PRIME TIME as its latest partner. We look forward to a long and productive relationship.
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PRIME TIME on the Cover of Mosaic Magazine
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 PRIME TIME continues to partner with humanities councils across the nation. One of our newest affiliates, Alabama Humanities Foundation, has four sites running this spring, with plans for more in the future. We were overjoyed to see PRIME TIME make the cover of Mosaic, the council's biannual magazine. The story is terrific, too:
[Library officials] see it not only in the faces of children whose families voluntarily come there once a week for two hours of reading, discussion, a meal and fellowship. They see it in the end result-families actually reading and discussing what they have read-together.
For more info partnering with PRIME TIME in your community, click here. And go Alabama!
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PRIME TIME Scholar and Storyteller Recruitment
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 The PRIME TIME staff is seeking qualified professionals to train and serve as scholars and storytellers throughout the state. PRIME TIME scholars and storytellers are the backbone of the program, and their roles define the quality and impact of each program. Reading stories and asking families questions about them seems simple, but it truly takes a special personality to successfully carry out those tasks according to the PRIME TIME methodology.
PRIME TIME requires professionalism, strong work ethic, a willingness to learn, commitment to preparation, and a desire to serve vulnerable populations. Accordingly, scholars and storytellers are not asked to volunteer their time and expertise. Stipends for program facilitation and mileage reimbursement for traveling to and from program sites is provided.
Click here for details on eligibility and application information. Send r�sum�s and curriculum vitas to the PRIME TIME staff, and contact Shantrell Austin with questions.
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July 2014 PRIME TIME Training Workshop Information
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The next PRIME TIME Training Workshop is scheduled for Saturday, July 12, 2014 at the Louisiana Humanities Center at Turners' Hall in New Orleans. The July training will shift to a 1-day schedule while providing the same number of instructional hours and maintaining an intense review of the program methodology, planning strategies, and implementation techniques.
Affiliate project directors should begin considering whether any team members will need training and prepare to alert the PRIME TIME staff via online Affiliate Data Forms by Monday, June 2, 2014. Louisiana and affiliate trainees will receive preliminary details on the training in mid-June.
While training workshops are only open to team members who are affiliated with an upcoming program, we welcome inquiries from others about the program, its methodology, and the structure of the training workshops. Such inquiries should be directed to the PRIME TIME staff.
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