Students Need Libraries in Houston ISD: Building on Pillars of Continuity

by Dorcas Hand

The SNL Team met last week to plan our approach for Spring 2020. Planning usually involves a bit of review of what’s done or in progress - especially at the start of a new calendar year.

Image from SNL website homepage.

​Our reflection reminded us that SNL-HISD stands on four key pillars, all of which come from our mission:

• Equity for all students
• The importance of trained library staff
• Support of traditional public schools
• Our community partners with shared goals.

Equity for all HISD students should need no explanation. We in SNL know that all students are more successful academically when they have access to a strong school library.

A strong school library is more than a bunch of books on shelves in a locked room on a campus. Without a person managing the library, the library is pretty much wasted space and money. Who will interest students in the available books? Ask teachers and students what new books to buy? Manage the books to be sure they are shelved for easy access by those who want or need them? Request the budget needed to buy new books and place that order? And accomplish so much more in behalf of student achievement and teacher support based on the expertise born of school library training? Experienced staff is key, literally The Key that unlocks the door to the magic in the library. 

Traditional public schools offer every student within the district’s boundaries access to an education. HISD students should graduate literate and knowledgeable, ready for college, career and citizenship responsibilities. These schools need to be staffed with trained teachers, teacher-librarians and administrators whose top priority is student success, not test scores.

Students Need Libraries HISD does not exist in a vacuum. We are here to educate our community how best to request and support school libraries. We are also here to work with other community groups whose missions overlap ours. Collaboration is how the world works best.

Given these pillars, what did 2019 bring us? And how does our work in 2019 affect our plans for 2020?

Successes:

• We reached out to the elected school board with information to support rebuilding school libraries in HISD, and received supportive messages in return. Despite all the unfortunate details of the school board’s dysfunction, some members took time to recognize the value of school libraries.
• We reached out to school board candidates, also with strong responses.
• We worked with HISD Library Services to learn how best to support their work, and followed through on requests.
• We visited a Journalism class at Hogg Middle School to explain to 8th graders more of the background behind the Houston Chronicle article about book circulation across HISD. The questions we were asked indicate that many of these students are figuring out how to be active, engaged citizens who expect their elected and appointed leaders will represent the best ideas. [See the Jan. 13 blog post for details.]
• We met throughout the year with interested supporters to plan more paths to increased success.
• We have added a couple of people to our leadership. Interested, energetic people are always welcome.

Challenges

• We have been unable to get any response from HISD Superintendent Lathan’s office.
• ​We watched with everyone else the threat of a TEA takeover, uncertain how best to respond.

Plans

• Reach out to the newly elected school board members. Their future in the role may remain uncertain, but they are now elected to be advocates and stewards of HISD goals and services in support of improved student achievement. We will do our best to educate them about school libraries as a necessary tool for the box.
• Make this blog a more regular post in order to get news and information about school libraries and their advocates to our SNL community.
• Collaborate with community groups like CVPE to support their events and have our name out there, too.
• Develop stronger communication with our community beyond the blog: GoogleGroup, Twitter, …
• Plan some new events to take our message directly to the school board and HISD leadership.

We always have more ideas than time. If you are an interested, energetic person who would like to work with us, please email. More collected energy will contribute to even stronger results in 2020.

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