Media Center Update

School:: Hilliard Mid-Sr High
Subject:: Other
Teacher:: Kristen Ray
Students Impacted:
Grade:: 6-8
Date:: August 5, 2015

Investor

Thank you to the following investor for funding this grant.

Nassau Education Foundation - $1,000.00

Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 750

The students have been so excited to check out all of the new nonfiction books that were purchased through grant money. The books are the hottest items we currently have in circulation because they are current, high interest, and appealing to the students eye. The books are constantly being put on hold and students have started a waiting list for several of the books. When we purchased the new books, we were unable to purchase whole sets of books but instead had to pick and choose what books we thought the students would want. We have had to start a "wish list" for other books from the series so that we can buy them when funds are available. Thank you SO MUCH for funding the purchase of these library books. It has made a huge impact on the circulation and the students' willingness to read.

Original Grant Overview

Goal

Everyone knows the saying "Don't judge a book by it's cover" but sadly this is exactly what we do! I would like to update our school library so that instead of seeing old, bleached out, torn, and stale books in our nonfiction section our students will have access to fresh up to date books and information. Recent reports from HMSHS's library show much of our non fiction section to be non only 10-15 years old but a significant amount of our collection is over 20 years old!

What will be done with my students

This is the start of my second year as a librarian. Starting last year, my first year, students were asked to turn in any books they found on our shelves that looked old, out dated, abused, or inaccurate. Students were awesome seekers of old books as we weeded over 3000 titles last year alone! We took these old books out of our system and had a book swap and distribution during literacy week. Then students were asked to look through catalogs, on the internet, and in the public library to find any books that they would like to see on our shelves. Once we had students recommendations, our budget was depleted rather quickly. This years budget is also disappearing quickly as we continue these same seeking, weeding, and replacing practices we set forth last year. The ultimate thing to see is that the students were active in choosing what THEY WANT to see and not see on the shelves of their school library.

Benefits to my students

If you saw movie trailers on TV and decided to go to the movies but there were only 20 year old movies showing, you would likely find something else to spend your valuable time on. Likewise with students in the library. They hear about places and events on the news, they see the ads for new best selling books, but when they come to the library, they are searching through old outdated material and they leave empty handed. The benefit of having new updated books is that students are excited about reading. They don't want the books their mom and dad checked out (although they have a good giggle when they find a book with their parent's name in the back) they want access to current interesting books. Students LOVE when we crack open a new box of books and fill the "NEW BOOK" display rack. They are willing to come in and read when they can choose what is ordered and tailored to their needs and interests.

All of this contributes to the internal realization that reading is fun! Frequent readers become fluent readers and fluent readers become EFFECTIVE READERS.

Budget Narrative

Items are not broken down piece by piece because we would use our money to buy non-fiction books. Library bound books average $20 each so we could potentially buy 50 books if we were awarded $1000.

Items

#	Item	Cost
	Total:	$1,000.00

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