Case Study: Atlanta Public Schools builds a city that reads with Beanstack

Building a City That Reads Atlanta Public Schools’ RACE2Read & Beanstack

Atlanta Public Schools (APS) faced the challenge of low literacy scores and sought a way to promote independent, free-choice reading to build student skills and joy for reading. They needed a tool that provided motivation and a digital log without being tied to testing. APS partnered with the vendor Beanstack to implement its reading tracking platform and mobile app as the foundation for their new citywide literacy initiative, RACE2Read.

The solution from Beanstack provided an engaging, gamified system for logging reading minutes and participating in challenges. By rallying a broad coalition of city partners and leveraging Beanstack’s tools for tracking and motivation, APS achieved remarkable results. The program successfully logged over 10 million minutes read in the 2021–2022 school year, fostering strong reading habits across the community and setting the district on track for another record-breaking year with 6.8 million minutes read halfway through the following school year.

Atlanta Public Schools

Jennifer Saunders

Aps’s Director of Library Media Services