Winburn wraps up 'One School One Book' initiative with family night: 'An awesome place to be'

LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX NEWS) — Winburn Middle School wrapped up the Fayette County Public Schools' "One School, One Book" initiative Wednesday with a family night celebrating literacy, culture and community.

Students spent the past six weeks reading "Invisible" by Christina Diaz Gonzalez, a novel featuring five diverse and multilingual characters navigating middle school. School leaders said the book was chosen because its themes of unity, belonging and culture reflect the student body at Winburn.

Kari Patrick, administrative dean at Winburn Middle School, said the reaction from students was immediate and powerful.

"The first three days that we were reading the book, it was about 9:30 in the morning, and the entire building was silent because every single student in the building was reading the same book at the same time," Patrick said. "It was a beautiful thing because it was like, 'Wow, they love it.' It was a physical book in front of them that they got to read and connect with."

Patrick said getting 750 middle schoolers engaged in reading at the same time was a milestone worth celebrating.

"If you can get 750 middle schoolers to read at one time, I think that that's a pretty big success. But not only did they read, they enjoyed it and they connected with it." Patrick said.

Wednesday's celebration included student-led displays about various cultures, a step team performance, a Taiwanese performance and presentations from students in English language development classes showing how they are learning English through projects connected to the book and their cultures. Families representing more than 25 different countries and over 13 languages were in attendance.

The school also unveiled a new wall hanging displaying the flags of more than 25 countries represented in the student body.

Patrick said the evening was about more than just celebrating a book.

"We want our students to enjoy reading, and that's kind of the first step in helping them grow as readers. We talked about text and we talked about how you can connect text with your real life." Patrick said.

Patrick also expressed pride in the school community.

"Winburn Middle School is an awesome place to be. Our students and our families, we love them and we're really proud of them." Patrick said.

The school said it is already looking for its next book to keep the community reading together.

Winburn was one of 13 Fayette County middle schools participating in the "One School, One Book" initiative this year. The program challenges each school to select a novel centered around belonging, community or safety for every student and staff member to read and discuss together. Crawford Middle School, which kicked off the initiative earlier this fall, selected "Same Sun Here" by Silas House and Neela Vaswani.

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