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About
I am the school librarian at an inner city, majority minority public middle school, with 90% of our kids qualifying for Title I services including free or reduced price breakfast and lunch. Our 850+ kids are 64% African American, 19% White, and 10% Hispanic, with the remainder being mixed race and Indian.
Since the vast majority of our families live below the poverty line, typical library fundraisers such as Book Fairs, just don't work here... no matter how hard I have tried!!
This is my first year at this school, and this library collection needs SERIOUS help! The campus was originally built in 1884, and was rebuilt and reopened in 2003. The library collection came from the original school, meaning the collection is very old and outdated. I recently weeded a book of old English poetry that was from 1950, obviously not something modern middle schoolers are likely to pick up. If I actually weeded the old, outdated books, I *might* be left with 300-400 books... for 850+ kids! ???
Another problem with collections this old are looks full of sracial tereotypes. If I find another book from the 50s or 60s with "Negro" in the title, I might scream or cry or both. Then, there are the books that call Native Americans "savages" and portray every tribe as Plains Indians. That is just not right for our kids. ???
I would truly love to update this collection, but library books are very expensive and public school budgets, especially library budgets are very small. My budget is $1500, but that is split with another teacher and therefore is NOT spent on library needs. ?
Books run about $20-25 each on average! Yikes! It would literally take thousands upon thousands of dollars to even begin to correct the defects in this collection, but I am a firm believer in "every penny counts," so whatever amount is funded will be a big step in the right direction for our library collection and thus, for our kids!
Since the vast majority of our families live below the poverty line, typical library fundraisers such as Book Fairs, just don't work here... no matter how hard I have tried!!
This is my first year at this school, and this library collection needs SERIOUS help! The campus was originally built in 1884, and was rebuilt and reopened in 2003. The library collection came from the original school, meaning the collection is very old and outdated. I recently weeded a book of old English poetry that was from 1950, obviously not something modern middle schoolers are likely to pick up. If I actually weeded the old, outdated books, I *might* be left with 300-400 books... for 850+ kids! ???
Another problem with collections this old are looks full of sracial tereotypes. If I find another book from the 50s or 60s with "Negro" in the title, I might scream or cry or both. Then, there are the books that call Native Americans "savages" and portray every tribe as Plains Indians. That is just not right for our kids. ???
I would truly love to update this collection, but library books are very expensive and public school budgets, especially library budgets are very small. My budget is $1500, but that is split with another teacher and therefore is NOT spent on library needs. ?
Books run about $20-25 each on average! Yikes! It would literally take thousands upon thousands of dollars to even begin to correct the defects in this collection, but I am a firm believer in "every penny counts," so whatever amount is funded will be a big step in the right direction for our library collection and thus, for our kids!
I am the school librarian at an inner city, majority minority public middle school, with 90% of our kids qualifying for Title I services including free or reduced price breakfast and lunch. Our 850+ kids are 64% African American, 19%...
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