WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 30, 2021. The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading (CGLR) announced yesterday the 54 communities that are Bright Spots for their responses to the COVID crisis last year. 

Specifically, CGLR is highlighting communities that developed exemplary or innovative responses to the COVID crisis, including new or adaptive roles, programs, organizational relationships, collaborations, policies and/or resources. In particular, CGLR is recognizing communities for crafting solutions that seem especially effective, replication-worthy and/or deserving of being sustained during the post-COVID period.

Kathleen Knudsen understands the importance of a positive engaging influence on a child. As the facilitator for the Metro-Omaha chapter of the Raise Me to Read initiative, she works to ensure that young children are participating in activities that engage their minds and contribute to their development.

Knudsen’s work is multifaceted. She conducts research regarding early childhood development for baseline and comparisons, raises awareness on the impact of adverse childhood experience, and meets with partners and allies in the community. 

All her endeavors within Metro-Omaha Raise Me to Read stem from a passion to help young children reach their potential. Knudsen knows how impactful early experiences are from her own childhood.

“I was raised in a house full of music and books,” Knudsen says. “There was always someone singing, playing, reading, or discussing big ideas.”

Her father sang in a barbershop quartet and her mother played the organ and arranged music for her own and several other churches and for weddings and funerals.

Knudsen’s childhood experience eventually led her to first study English, and then major in music at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. But it wasn’t just music that influenced her future. She also played catcher on a AAA fast pitch team. Knudsen says she became aware of her ability to “see the field” and to develop her competitive edge as a softball player. This motivated her to eventually earn master’s degrees in music and educational administration from UNO.

Early in her career, Knudsen enjoyed many different roles from teaching Honors English & Senior Project at Valley High School to conducting the choir at Duchesne Academy. She later became a School Administrative Manager (SAM) at Carter Lake Elementary.

During her decade at Carter Lake, she more fully realized the difficulties young children often face outside of the classroom. She is still haunted from the death of one of her students due to persistent child endangerment. This led Knudsen to search for alternative ways to ways to help the children with whom she worked.

“I was looking for the Rosetta Stone to solve student behaviors and staff response”, Knudsen said.

She took steps to learn more, including attending the first US Trauma Informed Schools Conference and providing training for school staff which demonstrated that trauma and adversity affect a student’s ability to learn. Her experiences led Knudsen to understand that teaching and working with students is so much more than test scores.

“Great teachers understand that rigor and relationships are equally important, but you can’t get to rigor without first having relationships with students.”

A lack of awareness regarding these issues motivates Knudsen in her current role at Metro-Omaha Raise Me to Read, an initiative supported by the Metropolitan Omaha Educational Consortium (MOEC). Her ability to “see the field” helps her focus on the students as whole persons, rather than simply pupils.

Knudsen’s experiences as someone who grew up in an involved and talented family – though also one with underlying circumstances that included four ACE’s – has equipped her to foster students’ growth and well-being.

Despite challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, Knudsen says she still focuses on the future and its potential to better serve children and their families. “My goal is to engage the community, spreading the message that parents and other caring adults are the first and most important teachers of children, and that reading by 3rd grade is essential for future school & life success.”

In her free time, Knudsen enjoys walking, reading, writing, and tending to several gardens.