For the third consecutive month, Smith Elementary School set the pace for all Poughkeepsie City School District Schools in the Poughkeepsie Reading Challenge in April.
On Friday morning, the school celebrated again with an assembly in which Principal Jessica Baruffo announced to the students their latest accomplishment and handed out congratulatory certificates to 20 top readers in the school.
“If you read as much as you can … you’re going to be up here for May,” Baruffo reminded the rest of her students. As the school that has finished each month with the highest average of minutes read per student, Smith has not yet let go of the Monthly Literacy Leader trophy.
"Are we going to win May?” Baruffo asked them.
“YES!” the students loudly responded as one voice.
Smith fifth-grade student Nathanyel Bautista-Riano was the top honoree across the district and will be invited to be honored at an upcoming Board of Education meeting. Other individual honorees from each school include fourth-grader Rachel Li (Clinton), first-grader Estella Gorman (Krieger), second-grader Alvarado Daleyza (Truth), fourth-grader Janiyah Campbell (Warring), eighth-grader Makhi Mayfield (Poughkeepsie Middle School) and sophomore Graciela Martinez (Poughkeepsie High School).
As May winds down, district students have read roughly 800,000 cumulative minutes, as recorded in the myOn system, placing them on pace to reach the goal of 1 million minutes mid-June.
Visit the Poughkeepsie Reading Challenge page to learn more.