23K Students Registered For Jeffco Library Challenge

JEFFERSON COUNTY, CO — Around 23,000 children and teenagers are participating in Jefferson County Public Library’s Summer Challenge, which is set to end July 31.

With all the hardships students faced during the pandemic, the program aimed to not only boost reading skills but improve students' mental health with "magical fantasy, white-knuckle suspense [and] examples of heroism," library challenge organizers said.

The students were offered a range of prizes through a reading points system, and the library said program participation was "overwhelming."

Education is an essential part of a child's wellbeing, and nearly a decade of progress in Colorado could be erased by the pandemic, according to the 2021 Kids Count Data Book, released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Even before the pandemic, around 60 percent of Colorado fourth-graders weren't proficient in reading, according to the report.

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The Jefferson County summer program is ending soon, but the library offers plenty of online resources for parents of young readers, which can be found here.