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Media Contact:
Michael Maurice
Program Director, Office on Children & Youth
540-568-6007
mauricma@jmu.edu
Matt Webb
Public Relations
203-291-9676
webbmg@dukes.jmu.edu
All Aboard for Reading

HARRISONBURG, VA.8 Apr 2016. Its a chilly Friday evening, and dozens of local
Stone Spring Elementary School students are waiting for the bus. But this isnt their everyday
school bus and these children are already at school, most of them alongside their parents. The
crowd has assembled in anticipation for the Gus Bus and its twice-a-semester Family Literary
Night event.
All this excitement over a visit from a bus may seem unusual, but the Gus Bus isnt a typical vehicle. This was exactly the intention of Pat Kennedy back in 2004 when she and a group of other
educational professionals set out to address the fact the half of local kindergarteners at the time
were beginning school unprepared. The winning idea was a "reading road show, as a way to
bring reading materials to underprivileged students who may have otherwise not had the same
access to them. Kennedy worked with the school district and Harrisonburg police to narrow
down a route that would be most effective at reaching a large number of students.
(more)
The Office on Children and Youth

Feature Story: Gus Bus | !2
The Chik-fil-A cow joins children in lining up in front of the bus to participate in the Office on
Children & Youths Family Fun Festival.
The project has only grown in the years since, with two buses now making their way through
neighborhoods and apartment complexes in Harrisonburg, Rockingham, and Page County, not to
mention hosting frequent special events at locations varying from Chik-fil-A to the Massanutten
Water Park to elementary schools like Stone Spring.
Just like how the bus's range has spread out geographically, its scope of activities has also grown
to encompass additional crafts, healthy living activities, tutoring programs, and the chance for
participating children to take home two books with them every week to practice, as many do not
have consistent access to a library. Funding from the Virginia Department of Education has allowed the bus to launch a series of after school enrichment programs relating to math, science,
and the arts. The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank has also stepped up to provide each child with a
take-home food bag at the conclusion of their hour on the bus as a part of their BackPack program; over 6,000 food bags were given out just in 2014.
(more)

This is far from the only example of the broader Harrisonburg community getting involved with
the buss activities. In addition to benefiting from grants and private donations, the program is
sponsored by JMUs Institute for Innovation in Healthy and Human Services (IIHHS). And
whether as volunteers or through integration with a number of majors and classes at the university, JMU students jump at the chance to assist the program coordinators with reading to the children, helping to run special events and more.
It makes sense because these are programs that benefit everyone. Kennedy names studies that
demonstrate reading to children before they start preschool greatly ups their chances of succeeding in school. The purpose of the bus is to supplement both sides of this transition, with a focus
on preschool-aged children and younger during the day and then in the evenings further opportunities for older students to receive homework help. The advantages extend to children of all demographics. As not all of the children who frequent the bus speak English, there are books in different languages to accommodate everyone who wants to come on and read. The buss features
have even attracted on board parents trying to learn English as a second language.
(more)

This is not the only aspect of the buss activities that functions to help parents as well as children;
in fact trying to get parents and their children learning together has long been a major goal of the
organization. Haley Springer, program coordinator for the Reading Road Show, explains: A lot
of great research shows that learning starts in the home. Exploring the idea that student literacy
begins with parent literacy before anything else, the Gus Bus has also been in collaboration with
JMU's branch of the Career Development Academy to hone in on strengthening English and
civic literacy skills for everyone in these homes. With IIHHSs help, families can take classes in
these areas for sharply reduced prices, fulfilling the dual purpose of bringing parents in as partners in their childrens education while they walk away with tangible real-life benefits as well.
These years of steady expansion and diversification have cemented the Gus Bus as an enormous
success. In a little over a decade since the start of the program, Harrisonburg and its surrounding
counties have seen an increase from about half of kindergarteners properly equipped to start
school to closer to five-sixths of kindergarteners. A few years past this threshold, the next major
goal is to have children reading at standard level by grade three. Springer cites numerous other
studies that show this is a crucial point not only in a childs educational development but also on
a more personal level, with the children under grade level at a greater risk for various problems
at home later in their school years and beyond. In this way the Gus Buss multilayered approach
to supplemental education is going beyond just raising family literacy levels and striving to carve
out better overall lives. Going by the numbers, by this measure the program has been thriving.
###

About The Office on Children and Youth

The Office on Children and Youth aims, in their words, to promote positive youth development
through working with all youth-serving organizations in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.
The Office collects and utilizes data relevant to the needs of youth and the surrounding community to be a source of information and change. More information at http://www.theocy.org/

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All Aboard for Reading

The Office on Children and Youth

The Office on Children and Youth

The Office on Children and Youth

The Office on Children and Youth

About The Office on Children and Youth

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