2008 Grant Proposal Details

Award Winning Library: Help Wanted   Adams Elementary

Total: $2000

Description:  Help is needed at Adams to assist our librarian in the daily operation of our award winning Library Program. A couple hours of weekly classified aide assistance would allow our .3 certified librarian to concentrate her limited time providing direct teaching of students and service to teachers. With the closure of our co-located alternative school Hillside, our pool of available parent volunteers has almost dried up and we are finding we have little help to assist with the processing, database maintenance, circulation, shelving of library materials, and the care of media equipment.

Why is this important?  For several years Adams has been the only elementary school in 4J with any certified teacher librarian staffing. Our librarian meets with all students every week in the short time she is on-site and teaches a full curriculum of library and research skills as well as providing literature enrichment and reading promotions. Not only does she teach library skills, she also works individually with each student in a guided check-out every week matching those students with books they are excited about reading. Having no paid staff helping with non-professional duties has resulted in a backlog of processing, book repair and the care and maintenance of library books and media equipment. With our excellent collection of 15,000 books and other media, there is a need to protect our investment by caring for these materials as a secondary or public library with a clerical staff would. The day-to-day tasks of a library are ongoing and we are beginning to see wear and tear and loss of library materials, as there is not enough staffed or volunteer time to keep up with the library administration duties. Last year our librarian lost a second day in the library and the effects of the loss of that extra time have resulted in an glaring need for more time to continue the fine standards of this great library. We feel it is more critical for students and staff to have our librarian teaching those important library and reference skills than to cut our librarian as all other schools 4J elementary schools have done. Those libraries try to maintain a library with volunteer help or limited classified aide time, but offer none of the services a certified school librarian can provide that we are so proud of here at Adams.

Who will be served?  All 203 Adams students, kindergarten through 5th grade will benefit from this staffing. We also allow our parents to have library privileges as well as the three on site after school programs located in our building. This year we have also offered checkout to two new preschool programs from EC Cares that have moved to our building.

How will this be evaluated?  We would expect to see less book loss when there is someone to print weekly overdue lists for teachers and send bills home to parents. The library will be less chaotic with books shelved and available to patrons on a more regular basis. New books and magazines will be checked in and ready to circulate faster than we currently are able. This will allow our librarian to have more time for her teaching duties and not spend her limited time with as many non-professional duties. We’ll collect anecdotal evidence from the teachers and families about how the added time has increased the efficiency and appearance of our library.

Does this build on existing programs?  Our library is the heart of our school. Many families choose Adams because of our excellent program. While we have never sacrificed the staffing of a certified teaching librarian, we have also never lost our book budget. Our budget has been shrinking over the last few years, previous grants of $2000 from EEF have allowed us to purchase new county and culture books, non-fiction for emergent readers, high interest non-fiction, new biographies to name a few and our library collection is well known as the best and most current in the district. We need this grant to continue the excellence we are known for in the midst of shrinking budgets for books and staffing.

Budget:  The entire amount would go to fund 73 hours @27.35 per hour. The staffing would added to the time of one of our classified teaching assistants. This will fund 2 hours of classified per week for the library.

Proposal #:  3