Graham Jones was a fan of Power Read from his days at Hillside Elementary School in West Des Moines. “When I transitioned to Waukee and became principal at Maple Grove, I asked about Power Read and presented it to some of my teachers and they were over the moon,” he says. This summer the program debuted in the Waukee Community School District at Jones’s Maple Grove Elementary, and it’s slated to continue there in the upcoming school year. “Any opportunity to extend what’s going on in the classroom, I see that as a positive,” Graham says. “And we all know that kids like individual attention. We talk about how relationships are the most important thing in how we support kids. The academic part comes after the relationship.” Power Read, he observes, does all of that with the foundation of books. “The mentors share their love of reading and help students find books they connect with,” Graham says.