December 18, 2017
This past week, the last set of Chromebooks were delivered to classes. There are now 85 Chromebooks and 24 tablets in the school. The children have access to Google Classroom and as many resources as the internet has to offer. It is an amazing accomplishment for our school and can be attributed to the hard work and vision of many people. This new technology has transformative power for the way our students and faculty can interact with each other and with technology.
In addition to this great accomplishment, another outstanding event took place this past week – and it happened in the library. On Friday, six volunteers worked tirelessly to cull and sort the books in our library and prepare them for book exchange. Technology in the classroom is great — I am the first to argue for it — yet a school without a library is missing its heart. There is something precious and priceless about a room filled with books that are available to read and take home. So, it has been a priority this year to refresh our library and get it up and running again.
The library has been a focal point of our attention since September. Each week, a dedicated teacher and volunteer have worked in the library to sort through r the books and prepare the collection for an early grades’ book exchange in the New Year. By completing this process, we have been able to return to the original purpose of our library: a collection of good books that reflects the diversity of our world and shows our children the many faces of our community, our city and our world.
As we move into the new year, we will continue to pay attention to our library – to nurture it, to grow it and to use it. We will start with our youngest readers and allow them to use the library regularly to enrich their home reading experience. When book exchange begins in the new year, we can approach it with awareness of and gratitude for the efforts of the parent volunteers who have made this vision a reality. The new roots of this library are just finding their place. We all look forward to seeing our library grow and flourish over the coming months and years.
