Hi Everyone! As my new school year is beginning, things look a little different! I am now a teacher in the largest school district in Kansas. As a district, we educate 11% of the student population in the entire state. This means that as a district, we house approximately 47,000 students across 88 schools. My current role as a fourth grade teacher is within an elementary school that is considered a title 1 school, where 90% of our student population is from poverty. Why are all of these numbers important? They include our future leaders. As an educator, I am responsible for preparing these students to become the best citizens and members of their community. As we all know, life works best with teamwork, so I am here to ask for help! Reading abilities in our district are lower than they should be, and I think a big part of that is the lack of access to books for these students. I am hoping to have some people who would like to become a "book fairy" for my students this year. Scholastic has books as low as $2 and my goal is to put a new book into each one of my students hands each month. This would mean that throughout the year, they'd have access to 9 books to take home. I currently have 16 students. I am looking for 16 people who would like to donate $18.00 in order to buy a book for each one of my students for the 9 months of the school year! I've had incredible support in the past with this and I'm eternally grateful for each and every one of you. Please know that you are part of the reason a student might have grown a passion for reading because they had access to a book to bring home that they normally might not have. Scholastic has made it easy this year as you can donate directly toward my scholastic account to buy books! If you made it this far, I thank you! Please help me in trying to foster a love of reading into all of my students this year! Love always, Ms. Bedore