Mrs. Penuel leads her first grade class through one of the literacy stations at CHS.

Members of the School Board were invited to attend Literacy Week celebrations in many of our schools last week and I made sure to RSVP to as many as I could. Choosing which events to attend was my biggest challenge as every school had an event, activity, or theme for each day of the week!

I kicked of my Literacy Week tour at Central Elementary. I got to be a Community Reader and choose two books, “The Old Woman and Her Pig” and “Three Billy Goats Gruff” to read to fourth grade classes. I was delighted to see other people in the community participating as community readers while I was there. I ran into Bubba Ramer from the City Recreation Dept, County Commissioner Karson Turner, as well as Superintendent Paul Puletti.

Eastside’s Multi-Cultural Literacy Night offered an opportunity to dance to German music.

Clewiston High School’s students and staff rolled out the red carpet for first grade students from Eastside, Westside and Central Elementary. CHS students decked the halls with Dr. Seuss decorations and guided the first graders through different literacy stations located throughout the campus. It was heartwarming to see the look of admiration in the eyes of the first graders and inspiring to see the leaders of tomorrow honing their leadership skills and nurturing a sense of community responsibility for literacy.

Eastside Elementary hosted an outstanding Multi-Cultural Literacy Night. Teachers and staff transformed the lunchroom into a multi-cultural party complete snacks, games, music, and engaging literacy stations highlighting different cultures. Ava Barrett from the Clewiston Public Library was in attendance getting families signed up up library cards and providing information on ways the public library supports community literacy.

County Commissioner Karson Turner took time out his schedule to be a Community Reader at Central Elementary.

Seeing a principal take a whipped cream pie in the face was all the reason I needed to load up and head over to LaBelle to Country Oaks Elementary! Mr. Sealey issued a challenge to students if they doubled their AR (Accelerated Reader) points goal, he would let them throw a pie at him. If they quadrupled their goal, they got to throw two pies. I’ll just say he had quite a group of motivated students with excellent aim and, since he was such a good sport, I couldn’t deny his request to throw a pie at me when students went back to class.

I want to say a heartfelt THANK YOU to the schools that invited me to participate in their Literacy Week celebrations. I’d also like to extend a very special THANK YOU to those who undoubtedly spent many hours outside of your contractual obligations to provide these wonderful experiences for our students. I appreciate those who go above and beyond for our students and make great things happen within our District.

A pie in the face courtesy of Mr. Sealey.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. All views and opinions expressed are my own.

~ Stephanie