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Librarians, students and parents urge LA Unified to preserve Reading Decathlon funding
Summary
At the June 17 LA Unified Board meeting, librarians, students and parents testified that the district Reading Decathlon serves dozens of schools and hundreds of students and asked the board to restore or protect roughly $250,000 in annual support to sustain the program.
Penelope Valdez, a teacher librarian at Le Conte Middle School, told the Los Angeles Unified School District Board that Reading Decathlon reached 48 schools and roughly 650 students this past year, and she asked the board to maintain district support for the program.
"We have 402 middle school students and 147 high school students who participated," Valdez said, urging the board to preserve the program that she and colleagues use to promote literacy and student leadership. She said the program serves a wide range of learners, including English learners and students with special needs.
Kirti Baranwal, a librarian at Clinton Middle School, asked the board to continue an annual $250,000 allocation that funds Reading Decathlon districtwide. "It is a small amount of money that allows librarians to continue spreading book joy throughout the district and strengthen students' literacy skills and SEL skills," Baranwal said. She cited a 150% increase in middle‑school participation at her site over three years.
Students and parents added personal accounts of the program's effects. Rebecca Ramirez, a current Clinton Middle School student, said Reading Decathlon helped her "improve my communication skills, writing skills, and especially my reading skills" and credited the program with her reclassification from English‑learner status. Student Emily Luna, speaking for a high‑school division, said the program "builds essential skills in reading comprehension, critical thinking, collaboration, leadership and communication."
Several librarians and parents described the program as a tool to expand access to diverse books and to build school communities. Veronica Medina, a teacher librarian, said that eliminating the program would "seriously wound the district's progress in literacy and academic excellence." Multiple speakers asked the board to look for funding options and to avoid making cuts that they said would disproportionately affect students of color and working‑class communities.
Board members did not debate the Reading Decathlon during public comment; the speakers' requests were made during the general public‑comment period. The board previously approved a fiscal stabilization plan at an earlier meeting and several commenters tied their appeals to that budget decision, urging the board to prioritize small instructional programs and to provide clearer detail about which programs would be cut.
The meeting proceeded to the scheduled recognitions and later recessed into closed session. No formal action on Reading Decathlon funding was taken on the record during the June 17 meeting.
