At first glance, it may seem like just a number: 4,158,491,611.

Four billion words read by Lafayette Parish students this school year. Words that lived inside library books, digital pages, dog-eared paperbacks, and classroom conversations. Words that formed stories, sentences, and structures—quietly building something far more powerful than a score: a culture.

Literacy is not just a skill. In our classrooms, it’s an inheritance. It’s a right. And now, in Louisiana, it’s also a requirement.

Beginning in the 2024–2025 school year, Act 422 mandates that every third-grade student in our state must demonstrate reading proficiency before being promoted to the fourth grade. Using the DIBELS literacy screener, students will be tested up to three times—first in spring, then again in May, and a final time following a summer learning program if needed. Those who score "well below" after all three attempts may be retained, unless they meet very specific exemptions.

The aim is simple, but urgent: no child should move forward without the foundation to thrive.

This is not a policy born from punishment, but from potential. When a child cannot read, the system fails long before the test does. Literacy is not a hoop to jump through; it’s a key. It unlocks opportunity, ensures equity, and shapes how a child sees the world—and themselves.

In Lafayette Parish, we believe the path to literacy is paved with more than mandates. It’s woven into the fabric of our school culture.

It’s in the way PreK students from J.W. Faulk climb onto a bus, visit a local library, and feel the rush of picking out a book of their own. It’s in the way Green T. Lindon Elementary School encourages students to participate in summer reading programs, allowing them to bring their public library reading certificates to school in August to earn Accelerated Reader (AR) points for the upcoming year . It’s in every Kiwanis Rewards for Reading raffle that turns words into bicycles, and every third-grade classroom where a teacher’s voice lifts a story from page to possibility.

It’s in the partnerships—with the Kiwanis Club, with Love Our Schools, with Home Bank and community supporters—who treat literacy not as a school issue, but as a community imperative.

This is what culture looks like. It’s not pinned to the walls. It’s practiced. It’s lived. It’s read aloud. And this year, it took the form of 4.1 billion words—evidence that our students aren’t just meeting goals; they’re turning the page.

Culture is built by what we celebrate. And in LPSS, we are celebrating the readers, the teachers, the families, and the support systems that make this kind of success not an exception—but an expectation.

Yes, we are ready for Act 422. But more importantly, our students are ready for what comes after. Because when you grow up in a district that counts not just how many books you’ve finished, but how far you’ve come—you don’t just pass a reading screener.

You learn to see yourself in the story.

And once that happens, there’s no limit to how far a child can go.