West All-School Read, Year #1…

This year, West has adopted the all-school read tradition from Pioneer Middle School. Both schools will be reading the book Flush during primetime. West will begin reading February 24th and will continue through March for National Reading Month. Although, not many West students know exactly what to expect.

Mrs. Davies, West Media Specialist, hopes to “support and encourage the love of reading…” another important goal is to, “ …contribute to the culture at West and to have an event and activities and reading the book itself and have it all connected and an experience we all have together … builds relationships between students, and staff and students.”

Many West students including, West seventh-grader Mikayla Randall, enjoy reading a book alone instead of in a group, but the all-school read has much to look forward to. Mrs. Davies foreshadows, “Each day there are recordings of people reading the book … in addition to that were hoping to arrange an assembly, there will … hopefully be dessert at the end, … in the cafeteria at lunch there will be flush sundaes and then there will be some other activities during primetime.” 

Flush by Carl Hiaasen back of book summary reads, “The Coral Queen casino boat is treating the ocean like a toilet bowl, so Noah’s dad decides to sink the darn thing. Problem is, there’s no evidence of illegal dumping. Now, Dad’s in the clink, the boat’s back in business, and only Noah can flush the truth out into the open.”

Flush was chosen by Pioneer and since we are just starting the tradition, we went along with the book choice.  Randall thinks, “…It might be good because usually, those types of books are interesting…” 

This is Pioneer’s school tradition that they have done an all-school read for the past nine years. Pioneer 8th grade ELA teacher, Ms. Swisher, states, “It is very special that West joins the all-school read because it will allow for cross-community conversations.  I know that many West students are friends with Pioneer students and vice-versa, so hopefully, there will be conversations about the book taking place.  It will allow for community building and will help to promote understanding.” Ms. Swisher hopes for West and Pioneer to communicate and has been working closely with Ms. Davies. Pioneer and West will be participating in many of the same activities and maybe someday all five middle schools will participate.