"No One Is Greater than Greater Homewood!"

by Susan Lattimore, Teacher, Barclay Elementary/Middle School

Thus reads a slide in our "Books-2-Go"/Story Pals presentation, which has now been seen by more than 80 Barclay parents who've attended 3 workshops in the past month!

I'm writing to thank any and all of you who have been involved in supporting our Literacy Outreach efforts at Barclay, and to let you know that we attribute our great success to the presence and active planning and participation of our 12 Experience Corps volunteers, our Community Schools director, Kelly Oglesbee, and Katie Horn, our VISTA coordinator. What a supportive team! We issue special gratitude to Ms. Wood, Ms. Green, Ms. Wicks, Mr. McDonald, Kelly, and Katie for being participants (and I do mean ACTIVE!) on our Books-2-Go planning team.

I want you all to know that your Bookbags-to-Go is the vehicle that has led to our Paired Reading/Story Pals program. We're all very excited about the imminent arrival of these additions to our elementary classroom libraries. As you may know, we're developing a framework for supporting the reading of your donated books, with a schoolwide reading incentive program. We're keeping a binder of organizing tips, activities, forms, etc. which could be used by any other interested Greater Homewood schools who are receiving free books.

I'd like to invite you, and all Greater Homewood staff, to join us for our Read Across America Day on March 3rd, celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday: Come see Kelly Oglesbee dressed as the Cat in the Hat! Come and be a Celebrity Reader in one of our classrooms! Come to our Story Pals Open House (all day -- yummy refreshments!) or Story Pals Training (1:00). Come to celebrate our great E-Corps helpers and VISTA coordinator!

Come to see why we say... "No One is Greater than Greater Homewood!"