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COMMUNITY IDENTIFIED NEEDS— Buena Park is a diverse community—a variety of languages spoken, income levels represented, and ethnic backgrounds of residents. A large contingent of the population includes low to low-middle income families, who send their children to the two main elementary school districts in the city: Buena Park School District and Centralia School District. Both districts have significant levels of students who qualify for the Free or Reduced-Price Meal program—72.6% and 44.5% respectively. Some Buena Park families send their children to kindergarten with little or no preparation for beginning to read, and these children are behind from their very first day of school.
Currently less than half, roughly 45%, of our community's third graders are reading proficiently at grade level. That means of the approximately 1,200 third graders in our community, less than 600 are reading proficiently. As research has shown, about 75% of children who are not reading proficiently at this stage will never pull alongside their peers. Data from the two school districts show a substantial achievement gap based on race/ethnicity. Hispanic students are the most challenged.
Understanding that children must be ready to learn and transition successfully into elementary school, the Buena Park Rotary Club wants to do what it can to ensure that children coming into school will be ready to learn to read from kindergarten through third grade so that they can read to learn in fourth grade and on.
HOW PROJECT MEETS COMMUNITY NEEDS—The "Books and Bags for Babies" project will provide print resources for parents of newborns, both for the care of babies and for the reading foundation parents provide for their children even when children are still infants. Parents are the first and most important teachers in their children's lives, and research shows that students are most successful academically and socially when their parents are involved and engaged in their learning.
Learning begins when a baby is born, and reading to their babies is essential for new parents to do. Parents, who provide lively and constant verbal interaction at an early age with their children, promote vocabulary development, a critical predictor of third-grade reading achievement. Because many parents do not realize their important role in their children's education and that it begins at such an early age and because many low-income families do not have print resources to use with their small children, the Buena Park Rotary Club's plan is to send parents and newborns home from the hospital with a small drawstring tote bag with an iron-on "Buena Park Rotary" label on the front. The bag will contain: (1) Your Baby's First Year, the American Academy of Pediatrics resource book that will give parents authoritative advice on all aspects of infant care, including a month-to-month guide to baby's first year with vital facts on growth, behavior, and development; (2) research information on reading and interaction between parents and children; (3) information about local school districts; and(4)more importantly, interactive books written in English and Spanish for new parents to read to their babies even as soon as they get home from the hospital. With these resources, the Buena Park Rotary Club will equip parents to begin the reading-readiness process.
TIMELINE—During the month of September 2012, (1) BP Rotary project partners, the Acacia Quilt Guild and the Buena Park Women's Club, will make the 240 drawstring bags; (2) school districts will be contacted for their materials; (3) research information will be copied; and (4) books will be ordered. By the end of the month, Rotary members will begin delivering bags to local hospitals for them to be distributed to parents of Buena Park babies. At city events beginning with Silverado Days in October, Rotary members will volunteer to meet new parents and distribute bags to them, telling them about the benefits of reading to their babies. Each month from October 2012 through April 2013, Rotary members will contact the hospitals and deliver more bags as they are needed.
PROJECT BUDGET—Project funds will be used for books, club iron-on name labels, copy charges, fabric, and ribbon as listed below.
$1128--Your Baby's First Year; American Academy of Pediatrics; ($4.00 each X 240 copies plus shipping and sales tax)
$1083--Dual language (English-Spanish) books for parents to read to babies($16.76 for sets of 4 X 60 sets plus sales tax—no shipping costs
$200--Estimated copying costs (copies of research on benefits of reading to infants/small children, BP Rotary flyers)
$424--Tote bag supplies: baby print fabric (50 yards @ $6.00 per yard) and ribbon for drawstrings ($100) plus sales tax
$165--Buena Park Rotary fabric labels ($100 for 240, $15 set-up fee, $50 plate fee)
$3000 TOTAL
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