Guild Elementary custodian trades in brooms for books to promote reading

BOSTON - The custodian at the Curtis Guild Elementary School in East Boston believes his responsibilities include more than sweeping floors and washing windows. Robert Pieper is proof that every adult can support children's learning in and out of the classroom.

That's why Mr. Pieper, an East Boston resident, took a break from his maintenance duties this morning to read to a class of special needs kindergarten students at a Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) event sponsored by ReadBoston. Mr. Pieper, whose children also attend Boston Public Schools, joined Guild parents and other visitors to the school in reading aloud from children's books, which the students will bring home to read with their families.

ReadBoston is the City of Boston's nonprofit children's literacy program. Together with RIF, ReadBoston allows 15,000 students in 50 elementary school throughout Boston to bring home three new books each year. The RIF program is essential to ReadBoston's goal of helping Boston children read at grade level by the end of third grade by providing families with the resources to bridge school activities with home literacy.

The Boston Public Schools serves more than 57,000 pre-kindergarten through grade 12 students in 14