Garfield School's Principal Diane Kostovski and Assistant Principal Caleb Valentin will be joining other community leaders as guest readers at the Chicago Heights Public Library's Family Reading Night on Thursday, November 18, at 5:30 p.m.
The CHPL is hosting the event as part of the yearly Jesse White Secretary of State Family Reading Initiative.
"Caleb and I were happy to volunteer to be guest readers at the Chicago Heights Public Library's Family Reading Night," Kostovski said.
"Events like this one can go a long way in involving families in nurturing our students' love of reading and helping them achieve greater success in the classroom."
Joelle Wake, the library's newly appointed Youth Department Manager, is coordinating the program. In addition to her responsibilities at the library, Wake has been working closely with CHSD170's Parent Academy Program to help the district offer students and families new programs and community outreach activities.
"The Chicago Heights Public Library's Family Reading Night encourages families to read as a group to reinforce the importance of building literacy skills at a young age, but also to build family bonds," Wake said.
"Family Reading Night establishes that reading is important, and since younger people tend to follow their parents' lead, we believe it's important to get the whole family involved."
"We hope this will be a community-wide event for families to enjoy special guest readers, family book bingo, pizza, as well as some special prizes!" Wake concluded.
SD170 Parent Academy Director Jennifer Gorton and Academy Administrative Assistant Maria Parise were quick to add praise for the efforts the library is making to connect with students and their families.
“We are so happy that the library is back open for the families and students in the community,” Gorton said. “It is such a wonderful and important resource for our schools with their great hands-on reading events.”
“We are doing everything possible to build the relationship between our students and the Chicago Heights Public Library and are thrilled at the great response to students signing up for library cards during these past few weeks,” Parise added.