Read-a-Thon!

I am looking forward to my in-school experience next week at Little River Elementary School. This Title I school is an amazing school with great diversity. Their school diversity reflects the surrounding community with 83% of the students in the school being minorities. Approximately 58% of the students are classified as English Language Learners, and in fact, Little River serves as a bilingual center. More astoundingly, 83% of the students are enrolled in Free/Reduced lunch, and the school has a 58% mobility rate (up nearly 15% in the past decade). Little River is a C school and has had difficulty meeting AYP in past years due to the minority subgroups' low test scores. Clearly, the choice to volunteer at Little River was an easy choice.

Having already spent 4 days (over 20 hours) at this school reading to students, I realized the students need much more than me; they need peer role models! Therefore, over the past month, as advisor to my school's National Junior Honor Society, I/we have been collecting new and used children's books through a school-wide book drive. I am please to announce that we have collected over 300 books! We also collected over 500 folders, 300 erasers, and 1,000 pencils, all of which will be donated to the students at the elementary school.

Here is what is going to happen. Next Monday, I am going to volunteer a day at Little River Elementary school, and I am bringing 17 National Junior Honor Society members with me. We will spend the day visiting with K-2 students and will be reading to them as part of a partnered literacy project we like to call a "read-a-thon." What the students at the school are missing are books and someone to read them to them, so we are bringing just that! We will spend the day reading, promoting literacy, and donating school supplies. I can't wait!