Needs
Over the past two years, the San Juan Education Foundation has received grant requests totaling more than $20,000 from teachers and librarians across the district to support the purchase of books for classrooms and libraries.
These projects had titles like:
· “Reading Across the Divide”
· “Decodable Books for Kinders”
· “Dari Books at Encina”
· “Reading Diversely: Community Engagement through Culturally Relevant Texts”
· “Books for Empathy”
· “Funny in Farsi, Enabling Students to See Themselves in Books”
· “High Interest, Low Readability Books for Struggling Readers”
These teachers and librarians expressed over and over again how access to new books that are engaging, offer valuable life lessons, represent the diverse world we live in, and inspire imagination and creativity are crucial to learning. They were not talking simply about learning to read but learning to love to read!
We've been happy to fund as many of these projects as we can, however, there is no end to the number of classrooms and libraries that need books. Post-pandemic our students continue to struggle, and our educators need more support. “Last year, almost 60% of California’s third graders could not read at grade level.” (EdSource, August 2023) The importance of growing a love for reading is more important than ever. This is a call to action for our community to help where we can make a real impact.
Using donated funds and working in collaboration with San Juan Unified, the San Juan Education Foundation can purchase books approved and recommended by the district in large scales and work with teachers and librarians to get them into the hands of our students.
Reading is the most fundamental skill children must learn to succeed in school and in life. You can help fill our classrooms and libraries with books students will love by making a donation of any size today.