LAS CRUCES--- After collectively reading 127,944 minutes during the summer, students from University Hills Elementary School were recognized by Governor Susana Martinez as New Mexico’s top-performing school in Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge, Monday, Dec. 5, at 9 a.m. in the University Hills Elementary School cafeteria.
The newly appointed LCPS Superintendent Dr. Gregory Ewing also attended the ceremony, which was packed with students, staff and parents, all eager to celebrate the students for their hard work over the summer.
“Reading is such critical component of education, and I’m so proud that these students pushed themselves to continue reading this summer,” Ewing said. “I’d like to invite Governor Martinez to join us back here in one year to see just how much these bright young students have progressed.”
As the statewide winner of the challenge, the school received prizes, a personalized plaque and an assurance from Ewing, that should the school win the challenge again next year, he would personally provide a schoolwide pizza party. The school will also receive recognition in Scholastic’s Best & Buzzworthy 2017: World Records, Trending Topics, and Viral Moments.
The Governor presented several of the school’s top readers were with certificates, prizes packs and commemorative capes, keeping with this year’s theme, “Be a Reading Superhero.”
More than 20 schools throughout the state participated in the 18-week challenge, and students from University Hills logged nearly double the amount of reading minutes as their closest state competitor in the challenge, Colinas Del Norte Elementary in Rio Rancho, NM, which logged 65,461 reading minutes.
The challenge, which was open to all kindergarten through eighth-grade students, required students to log their reading minutes in the online reading program from May 9 - Sept. 9, 2016.
The Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge is a free online program designed to encourage students to read every day during the summer. Children from all 50 states and 25 countries read more than 204 million minutes in the 2016 challenge and more than one billion minutes since the challenge began in 2009, according to a Scholastic press release.