Lively Library Elementary School Teacher’S Aide Brings In Exciting Guests To Convey Reading Messages With Humor, Entertainment

Mark Robbe throws a party every Tuesday at Trentwood Elementary School. Amid the laughter, the treats and the door prizes, the point’s always the same: Reading is fun, cool and important.

How many ways can one deliver the same message? Plenty.

Robbe finds messengers from all corners of Spokane. He’s invited Spokane Chiefs hockey players, a boa constrictor from Northwest Seed and Pets, and actors from Whitworth College to come to Trentwood’s family library nights.

Blaine Sneva’s auto racing team is coming in a few weeks. A hot air balloon visited last fall, and Robbe is wooing an NBA player to his program, but he won’t say just who.

“My main challenge is getting good role models to talk about reading to the kids,” Robbe says.

If his lineup seems heavy on sports heroes, it’s because he knows the kids - and the dads - will relate to them.

“He brings people from all walks of life who excel in something,” says David Keenan, who brought his three daughters to this week’s library night. Each guest explains what it takes to become accomplished in something. And each guest tells the kids that school and reading are major building blocks of success, Keenan says.

Last week, the guests were from Cool Whip, an improvisational acting group at Whitworth.

“How many of you know what improv is?” asked Cool Whip member Kevin Benson. “Only a few? OK. Everything we’re going to do we’re going to make up.”

They led an audience of about 60 moms, dads, aunts, uncles and children through an hour of guffaws. Allie Riggin, 7, and John Gardipee, 8, leaped at the chance to help on stage. Allie pinched her nose closed, leading the other actors into a vignette about a very smelly school bus. (The audience whooped.) John’s turn revolved around a mysterious itch.

Benson finished the performance by urging kids to read about things that interest them.

This was the third time in three years Robbe has invited Cool Whip. If one child someday ventures into acting, as a result, he’ll be satisfied, he said. Robbe works long hours to organize the never-ending stream of programs - 90 programs, he figures, in the last three years.

“I have a lot of sleepless nights,” he said. “And I’m not afraid to ask. I’ve called Gov. Locke’s office. I’ve called Bill Gates’s office.”

The unstoppable Robbe didn’t get a “yes,” but he isn’t ruling either one out, yet. Unstoppable? Robbe could talk the pattern off your china, the pages out of a book.

“Mark has been what I call the sparkplug of the program,” said Principal Bill McCrory. Other East Valley grade schools have weekly library nights, too. Those programs mostly revolve around reading and hands-on activities.

“It doesn’t surprise me that he dug in and made a success of it,” says his sister, Debbie Kaufman, a librarian at Whitworth College. “He works really hard at whatever he does.”

Robbe and his sister grew up in Eureka, Mont., attending a oneroom school. There were no extras there. With one swing set and one tetherball outside the school, Robbe said he and his friends used to play in the woods during recess.

Robbe, 44, is not a career educator. He’s worked as a warehouse supervisor, a lineman and a salesman. He misses his daughter, who is a high school junior in Butte, Mont., and says he’d rather be working extra hours to help children than do anything else.

It’s unusual for a man to work as an elementary school teacher’s aide. No more than 10 percent of East Valley School District’s grade school aides are men, estimated personnel director Daryl Isotalo.

Robbe shrugs off questions about his choice of job.

“I don’t care what kind of house I have, I don’t care what kind of car I drive. At least I know I’ve made a difference in the life of a child,” he says.

In addition to the main program, the library and adjoining computer lab are open every Tuesday evening.

A parent volunteer in the library helps parents and students check out books. Thirty-two parents have their own Trentwood library cards. The computer lab always gets use. For some families, Trentwood’s computers are the only ones available. Aide Debbie Zabora helps parents and students with their cyber-questions.

Coming up with a splashy guest every week isn’t possible, not on the limited budget available for this Title I program - just $500 for the year.

This week, library night featured a Yahtzee tournament. Eight tables of parents, students, brothers and sisters shook their Yahtzee dice again and again. Math practice has never been so much fun. The roomful of families buzzed happily.

“The whole idea is to get families to school,” McCrory said.

“Any time parents spend time with their kids in a quality circumstance in school, that will make a big difference in their kids’ lives and their lives for years to come.”