Lottery benefits local education spectrum

♦ Pre-K and HOPE money is huge in Floyd County.

Education is the big winner for students in Rome and Floyd County over the first 19 years of the Georgia lottery. The program has doled out more than 25,600 HOPE scholarships and grants to Floyd County students as well as providing prekindergarten classrooms for more than 16,900 toddlers.

Lottery ticket buyers in Whitfield County were big individual winners across the Northwest Georgia region, taking home more than $488.7 million in prize payouts. Floyd County ranked second in that category with more than $452.8 million in prize payouts.

Floyd County retailers led the region with more than $51.9 million in commissions. Whitfield was a close second with more than $48.8 million being returned to store owners and operators.

Data from the Georgia Lottery Corporation website www.galottery.com provides county-by-county numbers from 1994 through fiscal year 2017 which ended June 30 of last year.

Students in Floyd County shared more than $92.6 million in HOPE scholarships and grants.

Georgia Northwestern Technical College President Pete McDonald said HOPE was vital to his school.

“More than 75 percent of our students receive HOPE in some form,” McDonald said. “Our enrollment would probably drop in half if it weren’t for the HOPE process. It’s critical to our students.”

Pre-K programs in Floyd County received more than $62.3 million. Whitfield County was second behind Floyd in the number of Pre-K recipients with more than 15,200 students benefiting from an infusion of more than $52.6 million in Pre-K funding.

Floyd County School Superintendent John Jackson said the value of the pre-K program has been immense.

“Over my career I’ve seen a dramatic change in the

expectations that we have for kids, even when they get to kindergarten,” Jackson said.

“We expect our kindergarteners to be reading at least by Christmas time and so many of them even before then,” Jackson said. “Everything tells us that from birth to age five is critical because that’s when the brain absorbs so much and they’re just like sponges.”

Rome City Schools Superintendent Louis Byars said reading on grade level by third grade is a big marker in education and that getting students as early as possible only helps in that effort.

“The earlier that we can reach the students, the better we know they can do,” Byars said.

City schools are looking to reach even younger children by partnering with the South Rome Early Learning Center at Anna K. Davie Elementary School.