At a gathering of community leaders, Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Amie Carter led a slate of speakers in highlighting challenges posed by the region’s low literacy rates, and work being done to ensure every local child grows up with a strong foundation in reading.

Literacy Summit Sonoma, a gathering of community, business, and educational leaders, featured an array of perspectives on the urgent need to tackle low literacy rates in Sonoma County, where just 41% of public school students can read proficiently by the time they finish 3rd grade. The event at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts culminated in the unveiling of the Sonoma County Literacy Promise, a communitywide pledge to foster a strong culture of literacy across Sonoma County.

In her remarks, Carter highlighted the importance of ensuring students can read proficiently when they finish 3rd grade, a milestone in education where students typically transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” via textbooks. She called Sonoma County’s literacy rates unacceptable.

“What does it mean for Sonoma County when students are allowed to slip through the cracks?” she asked. “How do those students show up in our neighborhoods, and in our parks, and in our businesses? How does our neglect in this crucial area impact their lives, their confidence, their identity, and their sense of belonging?

“We need to draw a line in the sand, and get after this as a community,” Carter said.

At the Sonoma County Office of Education (SCOE), which Carter leads, the foremost program to address literacy rates is a yearlong Literacy Fellowship, which equips teachers with new strategies to teach reading and provides ongoing professional support.

Bellevue Elementary teacher Amber MacLean, who was among about 120 teachers who committed dozens of hours after school and over the summer this school year, testified to the transformative power of that work. She shared that 88% of her students increased their scores on their district reading assessments.

“The work and impact from the Literacy Fellowship is the most powerful thing that has happened in my classroom in 20 years,” said MacLean, who will serve as a coach for future educators in the fellowship, which will serve 130 more educators in 2025-26. “It is joyful. It is exciting. It is effective. And it’s unlocking the code for our students who were once left behind.”

Low literacy rates aren’t a problem for schools to solve by themselves, keynote speaker Kareem Weaver said. Weaver, whose work to address literacy outcomes was featured in the 2023 documentary “The Right to Read,” highlighted how literacy rates are tied to a community’s long-term socioeconomic health. His remarks emphasized the role a whole community can play in improving the lives of the children who live there.

Using a metaphor of a blended family to apply to the entire county, he implored his audience to want the same for all of Sonoma County’s children.

“Are they our kids, or their kids?” he asked of the nearly 60% of students struggling with literacy. “That’s a county question. As a county, knowing that 60% of our kids need structured literacy, it’s incumbent on us to give them what they need.”

The summit featured a panel discussion with business and nonprofit leaders dedicated to improving literacy rates. The panelists were Lawrence Amaturo, co-founder of Read On, Sonoma!; Matt Martin, senior vice president of community and government relations at Redwood Credit Union; Michael Mulcahy, chief executive officer of Kid Scoop News; and Gary Nelson, co-founder of K-3 Innovation.

Each shared why literacy is important to them and called upon everyone in attendance to lean in to improve literacy rates for the benefit of our community. Part of that commitment includes signing the Sonoma County Literacy Promise, which urges a partnership between educators, students, and the community to support and enhance classroom instruction and provide enrichment opportunities to promote equitable access to literacy.

Martin called literacy, “the greatest social equalizer that we have in our toolbelt to be able to engender resilience in our communities, change children’s lives, change their families' lives and their trajectory, as well as our communities overall.”

For more information on the Sonoma County Literacy Promise, the partners in the initiative, and efforts to tackle literacy rates countywide, visit scoe.org/promise.