Camas School District’s BookMoBus: Every Wednesday Through August 11

Camas, WA — The Camas School District’s BookMoBus program is a weekly summer event that happens every Wednesday through August 11 at these alternating locations: Helen Baller, Woodburn and Dorothy Fox Elementary schools.

As part of the summer recovery program (which supports more than 300 students), it’s helping Camas students that need extra work on literacy. 

“For elementary school students, the summer recovery program helps students that need extra work on literacy, at the middle school level it helps them with math and literacy, and for high school it’s about credit recovery,” said Diane Loghry, CSD Director of Early Learning. “We work to provide something that’s consistent for all.”

You don’t need to be part of the recovery program to participate.

BookMoBus is made possible by generous grants came from Camas-Washougal Community Chest and General Federation of Women’s Club, and The Standard.

Run by Jen Scott, a teacher on special assignment, and high school volunteers, such as Abigail Malone and Madison Scott, the events alternate each week between the three aforementioned schools: Helen Baller, Dorothy Fox and Woodburn.

The next event is today at Helen Baller from 9 am-12:30 pm. Next Wednesday it will be at Woodburn from 9-11 am, and then at Dorothy Fox from noon-2 pm.

Students are able to check out books (on the honor system), participate in readings, and pre-K students are encouraged to pick up summer learning packets to help them prepare for Kindergarten. Parents can check out books, too.

Guest readers include school board members Corey McEnry and Erika Cox, as well as Julie Mueller, Bryan Graham, and CSD’s Interim Superintendent, Doug Hood.

The librarian counted 250 people at the last BookMoBus event at Dorothy Fox and Woodburn.

“The BookMoBus program started in summer of 2019,” said Scott. “Last summer we weren’t able to do it, and so we came back bigger this year with a bus. The real goal is to encourage reading and so we provide an opportunity to keep them reading over summer. 

“Recently in the last two weeks we rolled out 200 new books. It’s coming from requests from families about which types of books interest them. I get the requests and that’s what’s getting them back into reading more. Popular requests are graphic novels, Dragon Masters, and Dog Man, which is like the Diary of a Wimpy kid series.”

Loghry said early learning classes were among the first to open last Fall, and said she’s proud of the efforts coming from teachers.

“Teachers worked really hard and they continue to work hard,” said Loghry. “They advocate to bring kids into the building. I think students learned a lot of thing this year: patience, grit, flexibility, resilience.”