In Oxnard, Calif., where nearly every child in the 17,000-student school district comes from a poor family, lack of ready access to books and other reading materials has been a huge barrier to developing strong literacy skills. That’s why Superintendent César Morales has leveraged the district’s 1-to-1 tablet program as a starting point for a massive bilingual-literacy initiative, to develop a deep love of reading in English and Spanish among his students and their families. Last year, Oxnard’s K-8 students collectively read more than 1 million books through the district’s reading program and showed growth on statewide reading tests. “You go through the enthusiasm of a [1-to-1 program] and then you have the ‘now what?’ moment,” Morales says. “Given our demographics, developing literacy skills in English and Spanish is incredibly important, promoting the frequency of families reading is incredibly important. We wanted the technology to support that above all.” This video was produced as part of Education Week’s Leaders To Learn From project, recognizing outstanding school district leaders from around the country.
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