SAN LUCAS — Students at San Lucas School celebrated Read Across America on March 2, focusing on their own campus reading and festivities rather than taking the usual field trip to a neighboring campus due to the pandemic.
King City Mayor Mike LeBarre read to students from kindergarten through fifth grade in person, while middle school students in distance learning were treated to a Zoom reading with Kristen Kittscher, author of the middle school books “Wig in the Window” and “Tiara on the Terrace.”
San Lucas, Bradley, San Ardo and San Antonio schools typically team up to take turns hosting elementary students from each other campus to create a region-wide showcase of reading, but the pandemic shifted those field trip plans around.
Rather than 15 readers seen in normal years, Superintendent Jessica Riley said health concerns caused her to ask only one volunteer reader, LeBarre, over to the school.
“With everything going on with Covid, this would have been a San Antonio host year,” Riley said. “But who’s going to be able to coordinate a field trip in the middle of the pandemic?”
In addition to the reading of popular Dr. Seuss books, San Lucas students were in a weeklong spirit week celebration, with different days themed around different books, such as “Green Eggs and Ham” day when students wore green.
“On actual Read Across America day, I dressed up as the Cat in the Hat,” Riley said. “It turned out the kids thought it was funny that I was dressed as the Cat in the Hat.”
The four-district regional celebration began in 2014 when Riley said she worked on the initiative as a then-teacher, inspired by the Bakersfield schools that also make the event into a regional activity.
“Since then it’s taken on a life of its own and it’s something we do as a shared community activity,” Riley said. “It gives us something exciting to do with all of our students.”
Popular books during the week are the well-known Seuss titles, “Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham,” but Riley said “The Lorax” has proven popular.
“Adults like to promote ‘The Lorax’ because it has such a strong message of ‘we all play a part in taking care of our community’ and looking out for one another and being custodians of the land,” Riley said.
For the students, Riley said the appeal of a Lorax comes from the recent movie version and the popularity of big mustaches as a costume or decorative item.
