What Happened When a High School Reopened Its Library

There’s been a lot of shouting about banning books and censoring teachers and librarians who are just trying their best to do their jobs. Groups like Moms for Liberty are hellbent on promoting ignorance by deciding which books they think are appropriate for your kids or my kids to read. Which begs the question: Have the Moms for Liberty ever used a smart phone or computer? We all have access to all kinds of reading material 24/7. And, banning anything only makes teens want it more, so banned books reading groups are popping up everywhere. Rather than getting all riled up about nothing, what if we saw school libraries for what they are – safe spaces for kids, places where librarians partner with teachers to support their lessons, places to create community and, above all, places to read and learn. Those are the values that Sheridan school district in Colorado focused on when they revived their closed high school library.

In an article in Chalkbeat, reporter Yesenia Robles describes how the outgoing Sheridan district superintendent, Pat Sandos, put funding for librarians into a mill levy tax request. Sandos is quoted as saying that he couldn’t believe the high school didn’t have a library. “It’s the hub of the school. So much goes on there.” What a refreshing take on school libraries. At a time when so many school libraries are closing, or their spaces are being made into technology hubs or learning recovery centers, Superintendent Sandos articulated the importance of libraries for students.

The Sheridan school library has exceeded expectations and continues to grow with community support. Not only does the digital teacher librarian, Jenn Alevy, partner with teachers to find books that will support their lesson plans, she encourages students to read and has been ordering more books as well as working on a “three-year plan to create more integration between technology and learning.”

The library has a puzzle table and a table to play games. Students hang out during free periods and lunch. English and Spanish books are shelved side-by-side to encourage students to read both versions. The library brings students together.

Alevy started a new elective class called Introduction to Literature. Students pick the books they’ll read for the semester,  write about them and promote them in the library. She found that students prefer paper books to digital books, so she is growing the library’s book collection, which currently has 1,500 books.

I have fond memories of my high school library. My honors English class required that we read several books by the same author for our final literary analysis paper. I met with friends for discussion and study groups in the library. Student council met in the library.

At my kids’ elementary school, I led a before-school Great Books discussion group. The kids showed up early in the morning to meet in the library and discuss the extra reading they had done for the group. We had some amazing discussions. These little upper-elementary school kids had a lot to say, and they loved having the safe space to talk about how the literature we were reading related to them – to their lives. It gave them new understanding of people who might be different from them. It gave them insight into themselves. It made them think and analyze. It opened new worlds. That’s what reading can do. And that just doesn’t happen by reading an excerpt or a paragraph from a book on a computer and then answering multiple-choice questions.

Like many parents who want their kids to love to read, I’ve been feeling discouraged when I see book bans and school librarians being vilified. Books are not evil. Reading is fun. We should all take note of how Sheridan High School transformed an empty, closed library into what a high school library can be and has always been – a safe place for students to learn, to read and to create community. It worked for them.

What are your thoughts and memories of school libraries?