Our students come from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds, and their home lives vary significantly. Several of our middle school students come from military families and more than 50% of our students receive free or reduced-priced lunch. Despite the differences in our students' home lives, they work well together in school, sports teams, and quality clubs.
Our students value reading, and we would love to improve our book collection to reflect their interests!
We are fortunate that our school library media center is a large welcoming space. We are in the process of re-branding ourselves to reflect all of the learning opportunities. Our students are eager to visit The Learning Center and many choose to volunteer their time in helping others.
My Project
Our library collection has its strengths, but it does not adequately reflect our diverse community.
As Carla Hayden of the Library of Congress so eloquently stated, "I think books are so important as windows to other worlds, but they can and should also be mirrored.
For young readers to see themselves in something important like a book, that really makes an impression."
The goal of this project is to provide diverse books to reflect our diverse student population. Specifically, we need books that can be used as windows and mirrors to honor our students of color. Our hope is that students will read these books at school as well as also at home with their families to encourage even more dialogue.
The books selected for this project were suggested by the African American Literature Book Club.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Burge and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
