School Library

Dream it.

The Library Committee of the PTO is worked over the 2023-2024 school year to open a community-led bilingual library for the students in the 2024-2025 school year.  Our goal is for our library to be a welcoming and inclusive space at the heart of our school.

Library Access
The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 eliminated a state requirement for every public school to fund and maintain a library. Pretty soon after that, elementary schools in Worcester began to see the removal of librarian positions until, by the early 2000s, no elementary school librarians remained. Many library spaces have been converted to classrooms and currently there is no funding from the Worcester Public Schools budget for elementary school libraries. library aides or librarians.

The Department of Secondary and Elementary Education does not keep statistics on library access for public school students in the state, so we do not have any reliable data to know how many schools have libraries or not. But a 2018 Massachusetts School Library Study conducted by the Special Commission on School Library Services found that there are huge inequities in Massachusetts between suburban and urban/rural school districts and access to librarians. 

There is a Worcester Public Library book mobile that visits the school once a month for a little less than 3 hours.  That equates to 20 seconds per student, which means most students in WPS do not have any consistent library access. 

Build it.

The School Library
Our school PTO volunteers staff the school library M-F from 8:30-2:30 everyday. That allows each of our 29 classes to visit the library one day a week.

To have a library gives our students, teachers, and families a bilingual center of inquiry, knowledge and creativity.  It increases book access for our students and provide diverse media resources.  Our goal is for our library to be a welcoming and inclusive space at the heart of our school and continue to be a multi-use space serving many needs. 

Our Goals

  • Our library will open in the 2024-2025 year and provide biweekly class visits

  • Our library will increase family and community engagement with our school.

  • Our library will increase student access to media resources.

  • Our library will support literacy.

  • Our library will be a place where students feel comfortable exploring reading choices.

Sustainability
Our long term goal is to continue to advocate for professional library staff, as well as a yearly budget from the district.  While we do that, we will continue to solicit donations from community foundations, businesses, and individual donors, as well as recruit volunteers, to maintain operation of the library.  The library committee is made up of 15 parents dedicating their time and resources to make this dream a reality and make sure that we can sustain it.

How you can help
Monetary donations: We have used donations so far to purchase furniture, a desktop computer and an electronic checkout system, as well as books and other library materials.  The best way to support our project is with a monetary donation so we can continue to put that money where we need it most.

Volunteers: Our library will be completely staffed by volunteers. We are looking for people to help us with a variety of tasks leading up to opening, as well as volunteering to run the day to day operations.  If you are interested in helping, please fill out the library volunteer form.