MANSFIELD — The Mansfield City School District began a new chapter in second grade education on Oct. 1.
Janet Kassoff, senior program manager at Second and Seven, gave a short presentation to the Mansfield City School Board of Education at the Sept. 17 meeting, showing the company’s goals.
Second and Seven was created by three former Ohio State football teammates. Mike Vrabel, head coach of the Tennessee Titans, Luke Fickell head coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats and Ryan Miller, a former Ohio State football player, WBNS sports reporter, co-founded Second and Seven after their time reading to young students while at Ohio State.
“We’re now proud to say we’re in over 25 states – 105 different universities and high schools have their student athletes reading to children on a weekly basis. And that’s phenomenal,” Miller told ABC 6 in Columbus.
Enrollment in the program is free for Mansfield City Schools and will provide readers twice a month to second-grade classrooms. Readers for Mansfield students will be student-athletes, administrators and board members.
“I went through the first book as if I were reading it to the students,” said Sheryl Weber, a board member for the district and bi-monthly reader for second grade students. “There is so much in there that can get the students excited. They are so intriguing.”
Each student will get to take home the books to add to or begin a personal collection. Kassoff said at the board meeting they have copies of the Second and Seven books in Spanish for those interested, particularly at the Spanish Immersion School.
The books, which revolve around the Hog Mollie characters, each have a lesson for students to learn and have questions for students to engage with after the book has been read.
“It’s very exciting,” Weber said. “We’ve had people read to students before, but students get to take a book home. That’s new and great.”
Second and Seven is celebrating its 20th anniversary since the start of the reading program.
First-year teacher Taylor Elliot, a second-grade teacher at Sherman Elementary School, said her students are so excited about having administrators and student-athletes reading to them.
“It’s huge for them,” she said. “They feel like they are important and to see them read is great. They look up to them (athletes). They know who they all are.
“If they see they are reading — they want to read,” Elliot said. “They want to be like them.”
