Library Policies

The Codman Academy Library exists to support the mission of Codman Academy, which is to provide an outstanding, transformative education to prepare students for college, further education, and beyond.  As an Expeditionary Learning school, the library aims to assist students as leaders of their own learning.  

We support principles of Expeditionary Learning in the following ways:

1. The Primacy of Self-Discovery

The Codman Academy Library seeks to support individual students regardless of reading ability or research experiences.  We see ourselves as an integral part of students’ education, both in terms of literacy development and in teaching students to locate resources, use information in responsible and creative ways, and properly give credit.  We seek to develop students who grow as lifelong learners and and appreciate various forms of literature.

2. The Having of Wonderful Ideas

The Codman Academy Library ensures that students and staff have access to and are effective users of ideas and information; students are empowered to be critical thinkers, enthusiastic readers, ethical users of information, and lifelong learners.  We seek to develop students’ competence as active locators and users of information to solve problems and to satisfy their own curiosity.

3. The Responsibility for Learning

The Codman Academy Library seeks to support Codman’s EL curriculum, but also to provide materials and guidance in using those materials that pertain directly to students’ other interests.  We seek to provide materials that will not only answer student questions, but prompt further questions for students to explore.  The library promotes use of the library by staff and students alike for this purpose.

4. Empathy and Caring

The Codman Academy Library recognizes that books and stories are important tools both in exploring their own identities and in developing empathy for people not like themselves.  It is for this reason that we seek to provide resources on a wide variety of nonfiction topics, and for our fiction collection to represent many different races, genders, ethnicities, nationalities, abilities, income levels, and sexual orientations.

5. Diversity and Inclusion

The Codman Academy Library provides intellectual and physical access to informational materials in a variety of formats and media.  School library services are provided equally to all members of the school community, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, nationality, language, professional, or social status.  Specific services and materials are provided for those who are unable to use mainstream library services and materials.  Materials are also available at all reading levels at both the Lower/Middle and Upper School libraries.  The librarian strives to include materials that are either high maturity/low reading level or low maturity/high reading level, and books that are available in accessible formats.  

6. Solitude and Reflection

The Codman Academy Library strives to create and maintain a peaceful, safe, and welcoming environment in which students can go to and feel free to study, to read, or simply to think: in other words, to learn.

The Codman Academy Library works to ensure access to a wide variety of materials to students and faculty in order to support the curriculum, promote reading as a leisure activity, and allow patrons to explore topics of personal interest.  With this in mind, we follow these guidelines:

Donated Materials

The Codman Academy Library happily accepts donations of books.  However, not all of them will end up on our shelves.  The following criteria guide this decision:

If the book is something that we already have enough copies of, is made of a material that will easily wear and tear with repeated use, or is intended for a single reader (i.e., workbooks, coloring books, diaries), we will save it for our pre-vacation giveaways.  Before every school vacation and during Read Across America Week, we give away books to students to keep.  In addition, there is a "giveaway" shelf that is located outside of both libraries at all times.  This is important to our mission of creating independent readers and learners.  We may also put it in a classroom if the teacher feels it would be useful to his/her curriculum.

If the book is not age-appropriate (i.e., some college textbooks), or if it is not borrowed by students or teachers given a fair amount of time, it will go into our Little Free Library.  This is located outside of the school and is used widely by our surrounding community as a place to both obtain and donate gently used books.  Anecdotally, we have received feedback that patrons include parents and grandparents looking for Christmas gifts, and programs for the homeless that promote literacy.

If the book is missing pages, missing a cover, scribbled or colored in extensively, contains mold or mildew, or is otherwise unreadable (i.e., pages are glued together), the librarian will dispose of it.

Purchased Materials

Every year, the library has a budget in order to purchase new books and materials.  Generally speaking, in order for a book to be purchased, it must meet one or more of the following criteria:

-Has the item been requested by either a teacher or a student?

-Will this item have broad appeal throughout the school?

-Is this item recognized by known organizations (American Library Association, Horn Book, National Council of Teachers of English, Cooperative Children’s Book Center, Notable Social Studies Trade Books, National Science Teachers Association, etc.) as a valuable book for students to be exposed to?

-Does this item cover a topic, a group of people, or a perspective not currently reflected in our collection?

-Is the book reasonably priced?

Student and faculty requests for books will always be considered.  However, we can guarantee only the purchase of books essential for our curriculum; other requests will be assessed using the above criteria.

Religious Materials

As a public school, Codman Academy does not endorse any particular religion or belief system.  Our students and their families represent a wide variety of beliefs.  In order to respect families’ rights to raise their children in the religious tradition of their choosing or no tradition at all, the Lower/Middle School library does not include works intended for members of a particular religion, or intended to convert readers to that religion.  This includes sacred texts, commentaries on those texts, or adaptations of those texts (i.e., a children’s book of Bible stories), as well as books of philosophy of religion or guidance on how to live according to a particular faith tradition.  

However, we recognize that it is important for students to learn about people unlike themselves, so factual books explaining different world religions are included in our collection.  For the same purpose, we include folk tales from many different cultures and traditions.  

Finally, books that take place in the context of a religious holiday are considered individually.  If the book promotes the meaning of the holiday as its primary purpose, it will not be considered.  However, if a book takes place during a holiday celebration, but the holiday itself is not central to the book’s message, we may include it.  For instance, Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto takes place during Christmas, but is actually about the need to tell the truth when we make a mistake.

As students mature, they are exposed to more ideas in everyday life, and are exploring their own beliefs as well.  Therefore, the Upper School library contains sacred texts, commentaries, and other materials from many different religious traditions.  The librarian will never “push” or suggest these materials to students unless they specifically request them.

Deselection Criteria

Sometimes, it is necessary to “weed” books from our collection, either because they no longer have broad appeal, because they have been damaged beyond repair, or because the information contained in them is outdated.  The currency of nonfiction material is especially important for topics concerning health, wellness, and law.  The librarian uses the Texas State Library and Archives Commission’s CREW manual for this purpose: https://archive.org/details/crewmethod12.  Depending on the reason they have been taken out of the collection, the librarian may place them in a classroom, put them aside as a pre-vacation giveaway, place them in the Little Free Library, or dispose of them.

Reconsideration Requests

If there is a book that a member of our community objects to having in the collection, the following procedure should be followed:

• The individual making the request MUST be either a current student at, employee of, or parent/guardian of a currently enrolled child or children at, Codman Academy.  Requests from individuals outside of our school community will not be considered.

• The individual should email (kfunderburk@codmanacademy.org), send, or hand-deliver a reconsideration form to the librarian (Kate Funderburk) at the address of the school.  Link to form: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ewi6rQExlKP1k-l6yR8dh_585kCcVGu50VaJ739iFFo/edit?usp=sharing 

• The librarian will notify the principal(s) of the request and convene a meeting of a reconsideration committee, which will include staff members with subject matter expertise across all three divisions of the school (lower, middle, upper), as well as a student representative (middle- and high-school materials only) within ten days.  The committee will receive information about library policies as well as receive a copy of the book in question and a copy of the reconsideration request for each to read.  They will then reconvene to discuss the merits of the request and reach a decision.  The librarian will report the findings of the committee to the principal(s) who reserve the right to accept or reject the committee's decision.  These findings will then be communicated to the original petitioner.

As a library, we strive to make books available to students in an equitable way and with no limits placed by family income, intentionally or unintentionally.  However, we work to teach all students responsibility for borrowed items, as we believe this is a valuable life lesson.  It is with this in mind that we have developed the following circulation policy:

• • Any student may take out a book, with no limits on renewals, and no late fees.

• • Students in K1 and K2 may take out books from the library but must keep them in school, to be used during the school day.  We believe that our youngest students are still learning to keep track of their things and therefore benefit from having borrowed items stay in one place.  All other students may take books home before returning them.

• • Students in K1-4 may take out up to two books at a time.  

• • If a book is lost, or if it is not returned to the library by the end of the school year, students must replace the book in one of the following three ways: 

• • • Pay for the book.  In order to keep our policy fair to all, we set a fixed price of $5 for paperbacks and $10 for hardcovers.  This is purposefully lower than the price of most books so that it doesn’t put an undue burden on families.  If students choose this option, we encourage families to have students use their own money, or to “earn” the money by doing extra household chores, etc.  Our overriding goal is about teaching students responsibility, not just recovering a financial loss.

    • A student may donate any book to the library.

    • A student may volunteer in the library.  The time volunteered will correspond to the books he or she owes, at a rate of $10/hour.  Therefore, if a student owes one paperback, he or she will owe one half hour.  If a student owes two hardcovers, he or she will owe two hours, etc.  This may either be done after school or during a “free” time for the student (work block, recess, etc.).

In keeping with American Library Association recommendations, Massachusetts state law, and the first amendment to the United States Constitution, students of all ages have a right to "seek information and have the subject of academic and personal research remain private." (https://www.ala.org/advocacy/privacy/students).  The only exceptions to this are the librarian for purposes of keeping track of the current collection, or if this information falls under the mandated reporter requirement for public school staff in Massachusetts.

The only reason the library keeps records of borrowed books is to keep track of books in the collection, and to inform decisions about collection development and library programming.  To this end, the only borrowing records the library keeps after a book has been returned are aggregate reports, not reports tying individual names to titles borrowed.  Any requests to see an individual's complete borrowing history (their own or others') is not within the technical capabilities of our cataloging software.