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The purpose of Book Blast is to help parents and children discover a love for reading at home by equipping them with vital reading strategies. At each monthly Book Blast event, readers demonstrate a specific reading strategy to parents by reading a book to a group of children and then discussing the strategy. Parents then practice the highlighted strategy with their children that night by reading from a second book.  As an added bonus, every child gets to take home a book and a second book is raffled off in each classroom.

Book Blasts are currently held at three COMPASS Community Schools: Roosevelt, Central, and Lincoln Elementary Schools. 
 
COMPASS Community Schools
United Way’s Community Partners for Student Success (COMPASS) partnership links 10 area schools with their communities in ways that are giving public education in the Lehigh Valley resources and support that is crucial during these tough economic times. COMPASS provides funding, convenes partners to identify systems-level strategies to support youth succeeding in school, connects resources and programs to school sites to support enhanced school day learning, assists with on-site coaching and training to support implementation of the Community School model and collects and analyzes data to monitor progress of this systems level work. COMPASS Community Schools have experienced tremendous growth in family and community involvement, improvements in academic performance for individual students, and improved school climate.

On the national level, the Community School model has garnered significant attention following the appointment of Arne Duncan as the U.S. Secretary of Education. As the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Secretary Duncan utilized the strategy to create more than 150 Community Schools in high need neighborhoods and has since championed the strategy as an innovative approach to supporting schools across the country. Endorsement of the Community Schools model via the national Coalition for Community Schools has been received from more than 170 national, state, and local organizations, including the two largest teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.
Community Schools seek to organize programs and services into one place, creating “one stop shopping” for students and families. These programs and services are designed to remove barriers to learning, create positive youth development opportunities, empower parents to strengthen their role as partners in education, and to use the community as a living textbook.

To learn more about Community Schools, visit http://www.communityschools.org

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