As a result of last yearʼs budget cuts, Read Right, a program designed to improve studentsʼ reading skills, experienced major staff reductions. Milo Minnis, Garfieldʼs Read Right coordinator and specialist, tried to find funds through a promise from an unnamed school district official, but that official now denies ever making such a pledge.

Garfield High Schoolʼs Read Right program improved the reading skills of over 130 students in nine months. Most of the students advanced on average two to four grade levels, with some students advancing six grade levels. The students have shown improvement in critical reading and comprehension. Read Right also increases vocabulary and develops critical thinking.

“The funding was never promised to the school,” wrote the official. “We only said we would do our best to fund this.”

Unless more funding is secured for additional training within the next year, the Read Right program could be further restricted in the number of students it is able to serve each semester. The Seattle School District originally invested $60,000 in training for the Read Right program, which allowed for enough staff to serve 72 students each semester, but due to budget and staff reductions that number has fallen to 24 students per semester.

Minnis estimates that because of recent cuts, over $30,000 of the districtʼs original investment in the program has been lost, and when the only other remaining specialist, Quinn Gillis, leaves for graduate school next year, the program will shrink even further.

Most of the students enrolled in Read Right are pupils that are failing in classes. Sixty percent of them are minorities. Minnis says that it is extremely important to continue Read Right so that no student is left behind, and that the disportionality gap will continue to close.

“All kinds of kids, from special ed. to AP students, have benefited from Read Right, and now thereʼs a waiting list to get in,” said Minnis. “Weʼre [now] in a place where weʼll have to turn away kids who have asked for the program.”