A Michigan school district established a districtwide reading board as a different but necessary alternative to a response to intervention model. The reading board sought a new way to acknowledge the depth and breadth of individualized diagnoses, instructional needs, and social justice in their school district. In addition, the reading board sought to subvert the overrepresentation of subgroups of students, primarily students of color, in special education. By altering traditional referral processes, students benefited from an asset-based, culturally and linguistically restorative, and equitable approach to literacy identity and growth.