Laurier Heights Elementary students eclipse reading goal

By Trevor Robb

EDMONTON — With one goal in mind, the students at Laurier Heights Elementary School were on a mission: to read 10,000 books from September to May. On Friday, school principal Tanja Caley, along with five lucky students, gathered on the roof of the school to announce that, not only have they achieved their goal, they smashed it!

With a school population of 380, from grades kindergarten to Grade Nine, the students at Laurier Heights Elementary read 15,073 books! That’s an average of just under 40 books per student.

“Our superintendent challenged us to find unique ways to challenge our kids to read,” said principal Tanja Caley. “We’re incredibly proud of them, they took on the goal and said we can do this.”

“Reading is the basis for everything.  If you can’t read, you’re going to have difficulty in math, science, social, and later on,” said Caley.

The school set the goal back in September. As a reward for their work, five elementary students’ names were drawn from a hat to join principal Caley on the rooftop to read a short story to the rest of the elementary class, called the ‘The Magic Hockey Stick’.

Junior high students also receive an award for their work. On June 29, students will be going to the West Edmonton Mall water park for a celebratory party and where two Laurier Heights teachers have agreed to go bungee jumping.

Teachers in each classroom kept log books and tallied how many books their students read. Those books were passed onto the librarian, and each month the school held an assembly to reveal the current tally.

“Having those monthly assemblies and unveiling that number on a monthly basis keeps them excited,” said Caley.

The school reached their goal of 10,000 by March, reaching 12,000 by April. A new goal for next year will be set in September, and on Friday, some students could be heard screaming ‘20,000’.

Library rejuvenation project

Upon finishing ‘The Magic Hockey Stick’, principal Caley had one more announcement to make. The school is in the works to give their library a much needed face-lift.

“We’re almost 55 years old,” said Caley. “It will be a renovation-type project, whether our library changes structurally we’re not sure, but certainly the interior will be gutted and made into a 21-century place for our kids.”

Right now the project is in its preliminary stages, but principal Caley says the school will be working closely with the parents council and hopes to hold some fundraisers in the future.

“The parent council is doing a lot of work for it,” said Caley. “We’ll have our kids very involved in what they want to see in a library, what they want it to look like, what would make a comfortable, inviting environment for them. So we’re going to ask them to think about it over the summer while they continue reading.”

robbt@mymail.macewan.ca