SPRINGDALE -- Kathy Lopez, 7, wrote on her piece of cloth she's from Austin and dreams of being a famous singer and dancer.
Kathy moved to Springdale with her family this month. She likes the popular summer song, "Despacito," a song with Spanish lyrics sung by Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber.
All-America City Award
• Given this year to 15 cities by National Civic League and the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading as finalists
• Judges evaluated reports from 27 communities named as finalists
• Award recognized Springdale for community-wide partnerships
• Partnerships led to nearly 70 percent reduction in students missing 18 or more days of school at Monitor and Parson Hills elementary schools
• Two programs created by the organization OneCommunity Reads, UnaCommunidad Leyendo! were mentioned for helping to reduce summer learning loss among students at George and Jones elementary schools and to enhance the leadership potential of parents from diverse populations
• OneCommunity Reads has partnerships with the City of Springdale, Springdale School District, The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and the Arkansas Campaign for Grade Level Reading
Source: News release on All-America city award for Springdale
Her mother, Mary Cruz Perez, said she loved seeing her children, a niece and a nephew write about their dreams,.
"My dream is to fly a helicopter," Perez said while sitting with family members outside Parson Hills Elementary School on Wednesday.
Children and family members wrote on pieces of cloth for a project that combines art and literacy -- "Voices: A Community Tapestry of Stories." It's a project representatives of The Learning Alliance, based in Vero Beach, Fla., are taking to seven cities this summer aboard the Moonshot Rocket Mobile Literacy Lab.
The visit comes less than a week since Springdale was named one of 15 recipients of this year's All-America City Awards, this year given jointly by the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading and the National Civic League. The award was given for partnerships in Springdale that help students and parents, including the "OneCommunity Reads, UnaComunidad Leyendo!" program, started in 2013.
The Moonshot Rocket -- a blue bus with a bright yellow rocket on top -- was easy to spot outside the cafeteria at Parson Hills. Organizers set up a reading circle with small blue chairs and shelves of books, and brought games for the children to play.
Springdale is a national leader in promoting literacy because literacy is community focus and not just a concern of the School District, said Marie O'Brien, manager of digital media and outreach for The Learning Alliance.
"You don't see that in the rest of the nation," O'Brien said.
The bus arrived Wednesday morning while adults and children met in the Parson Hills cafeteria for the weekly Feed Your Brain program, a program developed by the OneCommunity organization. Parents, who speak several languages, receive tips on how to help their children read, hear books read in English and Spanish and receive bilingual books to take home to read with their children.
Feed Your Brain directly impacts families, an approach that makes Springdale stand out, O'Brien said.
The All-America City award and the visit by the Moonshot Rocket reinforce the work happening in Springdale to make sure students are reading on grade level, said Diana Gonzales Worthen, co-founder and chairwoman of OneCommunity. Families who participate in the Feed Your Brain program stayed and were joined by others who came to see the blue bus with a rocket on top.
They wrote on pieces of cloth that are tied into a tapestry with string. Each piece of cloth asks someone to compose a short poem that includes descriptions of where they are from and their dreams.
Worthen saw one piece a parent wrote about desiring her children to grow up to make the world a better place, while a child who is Marshallese wrote about wanting to become a doctor so she could return to the Marshall Islands and help the people living there.
Springdale's promotion of literacy is similar to the approach taken in the community of Vero Beach and the School District of Indian River County in east Florida, O'Brien said. Representatives of The Learning Alliance connected with representatives of Springdale on a recent trip to Denver for a national meeting of The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading.
Springdale and Indian River County in Florida were named Pacesetter cities by the national campaign for efforts to reduce chronic absences among students.
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading started in 2010 as a network of organizations in states and communities across the nation to ensure more children from low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for life. The national network includes Arkansas Grade-Level Reading Campaign and the Florida Grade-Level Reading Campaign. Both Springdale and Indian River County are part of each state's reading campaign.
Springdale received the All-America award because of the nearly 70 percent drop in the number of students who missed 18 or more school days at Monitor and Parson Hills elementary schools, a decrease in summer learning loss among first through fourth graders because of the Feed Your Brain programs at George and Jones elementary schools and an increase in parent involvement in schools because of a Parents Taking Leadership Action program. The parent program also was created by OneCommunity.
The award recognizes communities for working toward being inclusive and involving multiple partners, Worthen said. The focus on reading will continue with the Springdale Reads campaign started by the school district, she said.
NW News on 06/22/2017