Spanish-speaking parents in Fresno County will have more opportunity to get involved in their children's schoolwork, thanks to a donation of more than 11,000 books by the government of Mexico.
Parents and students at area school districts, including Fresno Unified, will be able to check out the donated books for free -- even during the summer.
With Spanish-language textbooks and workbooks, children will be able to hone their reading and academic skills and work on projects with the help of their parents, said Larry Powell, Fresno County superintendent of schools.
The book donation was commemorated by a ceremony Tuesday morning at Ewing Elementary School. About 185 of 720 students at the east Fresno elementary are in the school's dual-language immersion program, Principal Stephanie Collom said.
The donated Spanish-language books are welcome and will be helpful, said Maria Luisa Baleriano, mother of two Ewing students.
"I study with them in Spanish because I don't know English," Baleriano said.
Selene Barceló, acting consul for the consulate of Mexico in Fresno, said this year's contribution to Fresno County schools is more than double last year's donation. The book donation, which began about 20 years ago, will help bilingual and dual immersion programs in the county, she said.
Some of Ewing's students in the immersion program performed songs at the ceremony as they clutched small U.S. and Mexican flags.
The donated books will be distributed at various Fresno County schools that have a large percentage of students whose first language is not English, Powell said.
Districts such as Firebaugh-Las Deltas, Mendota and Coalinga-Huron especially need the books as resources because they are more isolated than other districts, said Brigeen Radoicich, librarian for the Fresno County Office of Education.
Some books also will be available at the Arne Nixon Center at Fresno State's Henry Madden Library.
The donation is timely because schools are breaking for the summer, Radoicich said.
The books could help lessen what educators call "the summer learning loss" -- when children sometimes forget what they have learned and get out of the habit of reading, she said.
"The goal is to get the books into the school summer programs and into the hands of students and parents," Radoicich said.
Maricela Avila, who has two children at Ewing, took a few of the donated books home with her Tuesday and plans to work on academic subjects with her children this summer.
"We are going to practice," she said in Spanish.
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