May | Raising A Reader

May 16, 2018

Affiliate Spotlight

Alisal Union School District (AUSD), located in Salinas Valley, California, serves families in the heart of the California farming belt. With just 20% of their children reading proficiently at third grade, the school district realizes the importance that home-based shared reading routines can have on student reading skills. With this in mind, AUSD expanded their RAR program to serve kindergarten students in 13 schools, making book sharing accessible to the families they serve. Most of these families are native Spanish speakers so the bilingual RAR books are key to making that home-school connection.

Many school districts, like Alisal, grow their Raising A Reader programs using public dollars that are allocated in ESSA provisions such as Title I, Title II, and Title III. In fact, Title I requires at least 1% of a schoolâ€™s budget to be allocated for family engagement supports and programming-a perfect way to bring RAR to the families that you serve. For more information on how you can use public dollars to support your program, please contact Heather Deno at hdeno@raisingareader.org

How to Spend Down Year-End Dollars

Maximizing RAR materials and leveraging your budget

For many Affiliates, the program year is coming to an end. Blue Bag events are happening, class graduation parties are being planned, and impact reports are in the back of everyoneâ€™s mind! With the end of the program year also comes the end of the fiscal year, which means dollars not yet spent are at risk of being spent by another department, or worse, forever lost and returned back to a state or federal agency. Now is the perfect time to not only inventory your RAR materials, but to think about expansion for the Fall or next Spring using dollars leftover in your current year budget.

How much funding do you have available?

First, determine how much funding you have available. If you are a Title 1 school, you can use funding set aside for family and community engagement, ECE programs (when coordinated with Head Start), transition to Kindergarten, and Migrant Support Services. If you have Title II funds, any budget dollars allocated for professional development for teachers in PreK â€“ 2 grade can be used for the RAR program. Title III dollars can be spent when using RAR for any dual-language learning and immigrant children programs. For 21st Century schools (Title IV), you can use RAR programming for community learning centers, quality charter schools, Community Support-Promise Neighborhoods, Ready to Learn Programming and Placed Based Learning Services. Finally, under Title IX any dollars for Preschool Grants can be used under the budget allocation for Strategic Planning and Needs.

What about your regular school budget?

Besides funding allocated from ESSA, look to your regular school budget for funds directed for STEM learning, curriculum development and resources, literacy, and extended classroom/out of school learning activities. All these monies can be directed towards specific RAR materials that fit within the guidelines of your budget allocation.

How can you maximize your materials?

Once you have determined how much money is available, next decide how you can maximize your materials to make the greatest impact in your program. Before any new programs are started, you should first determine what your current RAR classroom needs are; if bags are shabby and books are worn, spend dollars on Refresher Sets (1 Red Bag and 5 books). It is better to sustain your classrooms each year rather than wait until the materials are so worn the entire classroom needs replaced. Second, adding STEM or Financial Literacy book collections to each classroom increases the value of the RAR program in that it ties the program not just to literacy, but other curriculum mandates. Leveraging RAR books with your classroom curriculum program not only enhances your teaching methods, but increases the value and impact of RAR in your literacy and learning efforts. RAR will soon have new Book Collections available such as the Curriculum Enhancer, Multi-Language Sampler, and Best of RAR Book Collection that can add new dimensions to your RAR program by tying it to multiple subjects teachers are required to cover during the program year.

Can you create community partnerships?

After sustaining all your classrooms, consider new programming where RAR can be introduced. After school programs are a great way to introduce literacy to children and families (they are a captive audience!). Also, consider collaborating with community organizations such as food pantries, Rotary/Kiwanis clubs or even American Legions in sponsoring a RAR program outside of your building walls to extend your literacy initiatives to new community partners. By offering matching dollars, oftentimes it makes it an easier â€œsellâ€ when partnering with different organizations in your community.

Finally, use the last of your remaining dollars to purchase materials for the upcoming year â€“ Blue Bags never go stale and having extra books handy when one goes missing is so much easier than coming up short when dollars are tight. If you need help strategizing on what materials to purchase, call Heather Deno at (765) 430-1555 or email hdeno@raisingareader.org for quotes or more ideas on maximizing your dollars and leveraging your RAR program. Happy End of Program Year!

CafÃ© Press and Lands’ End Storefronts Coming Soon

Want to order items featuring the Raising A Reader logo for yourself, your staff, or as gifts and prizes?

Raising A Reader is collaborating with CafÃ© Press and Lands’ End to offer products for direct sale featuring the Raising A Reader logo. Affiliates, staff, volunteers, and even parents can visit our online storefronts to order a variety of items that can be shipped directly to them or as directed. This is a great way to promote your Raising A Reader program. Our target launch date will be at the end of the month â€“ watch for announcements and links to these storefronts soon!

Local Funding Opportunities

Live Coordinator Training

July 31-Aug 1 CA

Aug 7-8 NC

Oct 9-10 CA

Online Coordinator Training

Sept 13 Register

Webinars

June 7

2018 Summer Webinar: Best Practices

Click/Ladybug Magazines

Award-winning Cricket Media magazines are available to supplement out-of-school time activities. They also serve as a great addition to Blue Bags ensuring children have high-quality reading material during the summer months.

RAR Blog

Raising a Reader builds early literacy skills through family engagement nationwide.

by mw@raisingareader.org | Jan 5, 2023

Raising a Reader builds early literacy skills through family engagement nationwide. After being nurtured from a local program rooted in the Bay Area to growing into a national organization reaching over 150,000 children ages 0-8 and their families across the...