Yavapai County School Superintendent Steve King provided an update on the Yavapai County Education Service Agency’s rollout of The Science of Reading initiative during the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors meeting on Jan. 7.

“This is the only county — the only board of super­visors — that has stepped up to support education in this way across the entire state, and it’s being recognized for that,” King told the board. “You all have been recognized for that. And some people are saying they need to be a model for that, and the other counties need to be stepping to the plate and focusing on that.”

The Science of Reading initiative focuses on phonics-based instruction, moving away from whole language learning methods that rely on memoriza­tion and predictive text models. Under phonics instruction, students learn to understand the oral, spoken parts of language — such as the individual sounds in a word — and then connect those sounds to letter symbols.

The board unani­mously approved inter­governmental agree­ments between YCESA and the Sedona-Oak Creek, Beaver Creek, Camp Verde Unified and Clarkdale-Jerome districts to provide professional literacy services to each district from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027, with the option for three one-year renewals. Each contract is worth $5,000.

The program has a tiered approach: Tier 1 instruc­tion for all students, Tier 2 for students needing addi­tional support and Tier 3 for intensive intervention.

King said the county is training local teachers to become instructors, elimi­nating the need for expen­sive outside consultants and ties into a theme of growing the talent pool of educators within Yavapai County.

“We have three people trained already, one in Camp Verde, Jessica Smith, as well as a person in Prescott,” King said.

Transportation chal­lenges in remote districts from Baghdad to Congress to Seligman have led the county to explore hybrid models combining online and in-person instruction to accommodate all partici­pating districts.

The program has gained statewide attention since the first Science of Reading training for teachers took place in Camp Verde on Aug. 22.

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne visited Yavapai County in the fall and subsequently encouraged other county school super­intendents to request similar support from their boards of supervisors.

King said he’s also invited Navajo County School Superintendent Rachel Lewis to participate in the county’s upcoming phonics training on Feb. 4. Additionally a countywide training is scheduled in June and is expected to have 150 to 200 teachers, curriculum directors and principals.

“I could probably use another three trainers,” King said. “But right now I’m trying to get focused on helping people get that literacy endorsement and then growing the connec­tions between the districts, so we’re sharing resources and ideas.”