BATH

Putting books on buses in Bath has been a boon for its students.

School bus driver Diane Gainey, who’s been driving for the district for nine years, said the books have been helpful on her bus.

“I’ve noticed a difference,” said Gainey, noting the students are quieter on the ride. “Kids are actually sharing more. They’re actually communicating with each other and they’re doing great. The only thing I wish is that every seat had the blue slip covers.”

The specialized seat covers to which Gainey referred come from a collaboration between the school district, Bath Elementary PTA and Patten Free Library. While they may not be on every seat, they will soon be on every bus holding books for students to peruse while they ride. The books are not traditional library checkouts, and kids can take them home if they want to without any due date.

It gives them something productive on which to focus, particularly on their journey home.

“Students often struggle with the bus because they’re tired after a long day at school and there’s one bus driver and sometimes quite a few kids,” said Dike Newell Principal Jennifer McKay, “so it can be a place where behaviors happen and we need them to have something appropriate to do.

“We also like to encourage students to read at whatever time,” she added, “so if we can keep putting books in their hands chances are it will grow that love of reading.”

The program recently received a large grant from the Maine Red Claws Foundation, in the amount of $3,500. The grant, according to Sheryl Ritchie, chairwoman of the Bath Elementary PTA literacy committee and who helped launch the program “has allowed us to finish outfitting all of the Bath school buses with seat covers.”

The program has grown much more quickly than expected.

“It’s way ahead of schedule,” said Ritchie. “We kind of expected this to be really a couple of years in the making of fundraising here and there.”

With the Red Claws grant and a $500 one from the Maine Humanities Council, the PTA was able to fulfill its initial goal of getting covers for every Bath school bus. Organizers, however, aren’t easing up.

“After we’re done with the immediate Bath buses, we’re working on Woolwich and Phippsburg,” said Ritchie, “and even after that we’re hoping to expand to West Bath and Georgetown as well.”

The program is still accepting financial and book donations to keep expanding the program.

“We’re still going,” said Ritchie, “and we’re going to keep going as long as there’s interest in it.”

nstrout@timesrecord.com

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