November 2024
By: Tina Roberts, Language Arts Education Specialist & OASL Board Representative (ODE)
School libraries play a critical role in the health and success of the school community. Strong school library programs develop students into lifelong readers, foster their curiosity, and those with a licensed teacher-librarian contribute to students’ academic achievement by helping them use and process information more effectively and develop and strengthen critical thinking skills. A modernized library is more accessible to students and provides engaging materials that feature the broad range of voices that exist in the students’ communities and beyond.
The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) supported small, rural school libraries through a library revitalization investment. This investment supported modernizing and updating school library collections and furnishings and provided professional learning support for school library staff. These types of investments in staff professional learning and collections development ultimately improve student achievement.
ODE awarded grant funding to 104 of 108 eligible districts. At least 60% of each $10,000 grant award had to be spent on updating the school library collections. Up to 40% could be spent on school library furnishings. Up to 20% could be spent on professional development for school library staff, and up to 10% could be spent on paying staff to process the new library materials.
One district grant recipient said, “I had a student that struggled with reading most of his school years and by bringing in some new books that were of interest to him, he has now found a new enjoyment of reading.”
A grant recipient from another district said, “I have a Hispanic student who was reading one of our new graphic novels, and turned the page to find a student with her last name who looked like her! She was completely overwhelmed by this and couldn’t stop talking about it for quite some time. It obviously meant a lot to her!” They went on to say, “Many of our new graphic novels have been very well received by kids who might not have had many books with main characters that represented them very well.”