Carole August doesn’t want to leave 3rd grade.
That’s where you’ll find her, year after year.
August is a Bannon Creek School volunteer who thinks 3rd grade is pivotal to a child’s future academic success, so she is committed to helping struggling students boost their reading skills.
“I read a lot with them, trying to get them up to grade level,” August said of students she works with in small groups and one-on-one in teacher Heather Gohn’s class. “Everything you do is based on reading. I don’t know of a job you can get if you can’t read.”
Long retired from a career in banking, August works has worked at Bannon Creek for nearly three years now, five hours day, five days a week, through the Sacramento Foster Grandparent Program, which provides a small allowance to help pay her expenses.
“I love it, I love every day,” she said of time spent at Bannon Creek. “It’s a reason to get up every day – and people are happy to see you.”
Volunteering in a classroom sure beats watching TV all day, she said, and the many hours spent with 3rd-graders is immensely satisfying when kids who once struggled gain confidence in their reading.
“They’re like, ‘Oh wow!’” she said.
“I want to do something worthwhile, something satisfying,” she said of her senior years. “I just love seeing the kids learn.”
August also helps students with math, but she’s new to Common Core concepts and says, smiling: “Third-grade math is hard!”
Outside the classroom, too, August enjoys reading books — particularly murder mysteries and biographies. She was reading Carly Simon’s biography this month. Jigsaw and crossword puzzles also are high on her spare-time list.
An Oregon native, August has lived in Sacramento for more than 35 years and is the mother of four grown children. She is a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball fan and roots for the Oregon Ducks in college basketball. She also enjoys watching golf.
What advice would she give to a potential school volunteer?
Just dive right in!” she said.
