Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia works to improve literacy in the Coachella Valley

A local assemblyman is looking to cut the red tape that prevented volunteers from helping children in the East Valley learn to read. Eduardo Garcia’s Transport to Literacy bill is now headed to the state assembly.

If the bill is signed at the Governor’s desk it will allow school districts to transport adult volunteers to school sites.

Pamela Johnson is a teacher at Mecca Elementary, which is one of many schools that relies on the assistance of Read With Me Volunteers.

The volunteers visit schools across the valley, twice a week, during the school year and work with students to improve their reading and comprehension.

But this past year, volunteers, who rely on Coachella Valley Unified School District busses, lost their way of transportation because of a state vehicle code preventing adult volunteers from being on school busses.

“We had very few volunteers coming and it was really sad. Some teachers were like, ‘I don’t have any of my volunteers’ Mine dropped probably 50 to 60 percent because they just don’t drive. We saw that as, ‘oh our test scores might not be as good because they [students] wont get the attention’,” Johnson said.

But with the support of AB -1453, more than 700 adult volunteers will gain their transportation back, allowing them to continue to reach more than 5,000 students, most within CVUSD.

Read With Me volunteer, Dan Giovanniti, said the legislation is vital to their program.

“Last November the state said, ‘Can’t do it. You can’t transport adults on school buses for a program like this. We then had to hire private transportation. We will save $50,000 a year through the new program, getting the school buses back in operation, even though we contribute to the buses operation,” Giovanitti said.

Christina Jeffredo was a former Read With Me student, who benefited from the program nearly a decade ago.

“I noticed my test scores would go up with my reading and vocabulary, that helped me with fluency,” Jeffredo said.

As the city of Coachella works to improve literacy in their community, and during the construction of a local library, Read With Me volunteers are available to students, when other resources are not.

“In any community that’s not very large, there are sometimes resources that are needed to play catch up with our bigger neighbors, but at the end of the day, the county, school district, and city care about improving the quality of life in those areas,” Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez said.