No sliding this summer

Inspiration can strike at any moment.

For Anna Ratliff, principal at West Navarre Intermediate School, it was when a teacher at the school shared with Ratliff an article printed in “U.S. Today.”

The article described a phenomenon known as the “summer slide.” Often in lower socio-economic classes, children don’t spend their summer vacations reading due to a lack in available books. This creates a slide or fall-behind when the student heads back to school in the fall.

In the article, a program was created to give those students books to take home for the summer.

“It wasn’t my original idea; it came from the article, but I thought let’s see if we can’t implement it,” said Ratliff, who brought the article to life at West Navarre Intermediate School. “We brought it up at one of our committee meetings. We started talking about wouldn’t it be neat if we could do that and so that brought the idea up of trying to get books donated.”

For more on this story, see the June 30 issue of the Navarre Press or subscribe online.