KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Public School District kicked off its #kcpsLovesToRead campaign with 15 minutes of quiet reading on Sept. 7.

The campaign will last through the school year to May 2023.

In addition, the campaign serves students from pre-K to 12th grade, spread across more than 38 school
buildings is a monthly themed reading program featuring material meant to foster belonging, friendship, curiosity, confidence, courage, and hope.

Director of elementary curriculum and instruction for the Kansas City Public School District, Erin Dorsey says faculty and members of the community felt concerned about the socioemotional toll the pandemic has taken on children.

“While we wanted to do something to support our students with that, we also knew we needed
to do something to support our students with literacy,” Dorsey said. “We thought the best way would be to
marry the two.”

KCPS student IDs will function as Library cards and every student has full access to the Library’s suite of
services and all materials.

The Library will support this campaign by creating displays of each month’s themed books at its branches and featuring some of the titles in Dial-a-Story and on the Library’s youth YouTube channel.