For the past three years, the Bryan-College Station Chamber of Commerce has sponsored a luncheon to support and celebrate the work of Read By 3rd, a local volunteer-driven initiative that began in Bryan’s Ben Milam and Anson Jones elementary schools in 2013. This school year, Read By 3rd added its third school, Fannin Elementary. Jane Long and Rayburn intermediate schools will be added this coming fall.

The premise of Read By 3rd is that parental engagement in children’s education is essential to their academic, emotional and social success. This notion is established by the Annie E. Casey Foundation research and common sense. Notwithstanding curriculum changes and special efforts the schools make to assist students, unless the parents are part of the process, the academic, emotional and social success will continue to be of limited success. The schools cannot achieve their mission if they are not supported intentionally by the parents. Students spend more than 70 percent of their time at home and with their parents. Given this reality, the home environment provided by parents regarding reading, studying, safety, nutrition and structure of the child are integral to a child’s success.

Read By 3rd focuses on the parent’s role and how they can become the support and inspiration at home and school. This is accomplished by creating a learning home environment and encouraging the child with the proper structure and discipline that convinces the student their educational development is a priority to their parents. Parental engagement at home includes reading, listening, telling stories, as well as structured schedules for nutritious meals, studying, sleeping and jointly spending time together while visiting community events and places.

Read By 3rd has impacted more than 240 parents and 500 children in the past four years. In relative terms, it is a small number, but it is huge in its influence. The program’s goal is to have at minimum 15 percent of families in each school to be Read By 3rd participants. Our belief is that this critical number of parents and children will transform an entire school’s culture as other parents see and experience the change in results, attitudes, school environment and academic success.

Unfortunately, in schools across our nation, including locally, there is a deficit in parental engagement. The solution is simple: Let’s get parents back into being partners with the school. Though simple, the task is complicated by the reality that parents often are disconnected from the school and consequently students fall through the cracks. Parents are products of their own failed ability to read, fractured family relationships, crime and poverty.

According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, two-thirds of the students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare. In a 2015 report produced by Kids Count Data for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 69 percent of Texas children could not proficiently read at grade level by third grade. This means 69 percent of Texas children were not ready to “read to learn.” The result of not reading at grade level proficiently creates lower academic scores, high drop outs rates, and increased juvenile and adult crime statistics. Reading is the X-factor.

Parental engagement is non-negotiable. We will continue to spend money with the same results, unless the missing link — parents — is brought into the mix. Read By 3rd’s commitment and vision is to create the model and momentum necessary to transform families and schools that produce emotionally and socially responsible adults that are academically successful.

Read By 3rd goals include:

• Transforming a parent’s vision and role in the education of their children.

• Providing training regarding strategies to achieve academic, emotional and social success.

• Providing access to parents, students and teachers to community resources, activities, events and relationships.

• Creating an academically, emotionally and socially learning community that transforms the school culture.

Read By 3rd appreciates the Chamber of Commerce’s acknowledgment of the role of parental engagement to achieve higher-achieving students. The future social, cultural and economic development of the Bryan-College Station community is at stake. The recognition by the business community is essential to establishing the Read by 3rd model across our schools. Eventually, our children either will become contributors to our economic well-being or drain our social, cultural, legal and economic resources. Read By 3rd thanks community-based organizations that have joined us in this initiative. These include Clara B. Mounce Public Library, Brazos Valley Food Bank, First United Methodist Bryan- Adult Bible Study and Wesley Class, OPAS, CAMAC, Corps of Cadets, Texas A&M, The Texas A&M University System, Bush Presidential Library and Museum, Bush School, city of Bryan, Brazos County, Fiestas Patrias, as well as many other businesses across the community.

Through our program, families become engaged with the community resources and opportunities that otherwise they never would have encountered. Families often live marginal lives that result in children not benefiting from relationships and resources that will add value to their educational, emotional and social development.

Our families meet monthly from October through May and experience relationship-building programs and presentations by community experts in reading, math, nutrition, health and safety. Further, teachers and volunteers undergo a unique training designed to prepare them to become “facilitators of relationships” between and among students, parents and teachers.

All parents are facing challenges that seem insurmountable. Read By 3rd introduces them to supportive, value-added relationships and opportunities with teachers and volunteers.

Our agreements with the parents, teachers and volunteers include:

• Do not judge

• Do not attack

• Seek to understand

• Add value to each other.

These simple agreements resonate with the parents and all concerned because we are creating a “safe place” designed ultimately to result in academic, emotional and social success for our students.

Read By 3rd and the Bryan-College Station Chamber of Commerce invite you to its annual luncheon to be held Tuesday at the College Station Hilton from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. For more information please go to www.bcschamber.org or call 979-260-5200.

• Daniel Haernandez is a Bryan native and former city councilman. He is a founder of Read by 3rd.

Source: The Eagle