"Equal access to education is the civil rights issue of today and it's something that needs to be addressed across all borders. Education is the equalizer." -Rep. Bruce V. Morris, Connecticut
The goal for the Love 4 Literacy project is to create academically equitable communities. The project will bring together community agencies within Milpitas to establish a network of educational resources and services for families. In doing so, the district will reduce the existing opportunity gap by extending its mission and vision to the families of our youngest members of the community.
The Milpitas Unified School District, in partnership with the Milpitas Library, YMCA, and Health Trust is sponsoring a series of six, free, educational field trips for non-school aged children and their families. Each event is designed to develop educational concepts and a love for literacy among our youngest readers, as well as to offer parents resources designed to foster their growing educational relationship with their children.
The objective of Love4Literacy is for children (ages 0-5) to increase their reading exposure by 100hrs/year for up to 3 years until they are at grade level. Family outreach also afforded parents to consider shifting cultural norms toward fostering early vocabulary and literacy skills through the use of oral, traditional and digital literacy materials. Parental resources also included how to best take advantage of school and community resources in order to stay engaged in their child's growing education.
Love4Literacy continues to explore personalized ways of creating academically equitable communities.
New and exciting educational field trips are currently being planned for the new school year. Check back in August of 2019 for more details.
During the winter of 2019, Rose Elementary school hosted the first kindergarten exploration class. The 16-week curriculum hosted incoming students and family members in a fun and project based curriculum designed to touch on early literacy and math skills through fun and engaging projects. Exploration classes will expand to kindergarten and first grade in the winter of 2020.
The summer of 2019 will see the expansion of summer camps including kindergarten and first grade bridge experiences. Each camp offers students and families a personalized, detailed skill building curriculum designed to meet the needs of individual students and parents. Summer camps will expand to include incoming K-3rd grade students in the summer of 2020.
Love4Literacy is currently in the planning stages of training high-school aged tutors to offer home-based support in early literacy, math, and other foundational skills for families with children ages 0-8 years of age. The "Mentors" program will match pairs of mentors with host families during the school year 1-2 hours a week. Be on the look out for more details coming in the Fall of 2019.