Sign at a Florida High School Sends Literacy Efforts “Laeping” in the Wrong Direction

A misspelled sign at Lakewood High School in St. Petersburg advertising a “Laeping to Literacy Night” has students in stitches and this blogger wondering if Lakewood school administrators might benefit from some time in 5^th grade classroom for some spelling bee preparation. The sign, posted Friday, was meant to promote a literacy program at the Floridian High School on Wednesday, Feburary 29^th—but the custodian responsible for the lettering on the Lakewood billboard clearly put his foot in his mouth, accidentally misspelling “laeping.”

The misspelled school sign encouraging literacy

The ironically misspelled sign stayed up outside of Lakewood High School for the entire weekend—more than enough time for local students to snap cell-phone pictures of the sign and post it to online social media sites. Lakewood’s principal Robert Vicarti responded good-naturedly, joking “Thank god we’re not surgeons,” while emphasizing “we don’t want to (laugh) at the expense of the man who made the mistake.”

But behind the funny literacy sign lies a disturbing trend of illiteracy (and in fact, this is not the first time that a school sign has been misspelled in recent months). Last year, less than 45 percent of Lakewood High students scored at grade level on the Florida’s standardized reading test. And it’s not just Florida; across the United States, literacy rates are dropping, and many educators assert that American public schools are in a state of crisis. Patricia Schley, the Lakewood literacy coach, organized the event to train parents on how to train their children to become better readers. Not surprisingly, Schley was none too pleased upon finding that all of her hard work to promote literacy was undermined by a sign that was lacking in literacy. Hey, at least the signs at www.mysecuritysign.com/school-security-signs are always spelled correctly.

– Z. Miller