Build partnerships with community organizations
The Schenectady City School District serves over 10,000 students across 17 schools and sits in a city that has the 13th highest concentration of childhood poverty in the Nation among cities of more than 65,000 (2011 American Community Survey).
We have a significant literacy achievement issue, where approximately 80% of our students read below grade level and we have significant disproportionality among our students of color. As a district, we work tirelessly to find solutions to our literacy challenges. Two years ago we launched what has become a district campaign called #schenectadyreads.
This comprehensive project works in partnership with community organizations to engage students in reading by ensuring that our most vulnerable students in our district have access to quality texts that are relevant, engaging, and âvalidâ that they can talk about, write about, and most importantly, share with their friends and classmates.
When launched this project two years ago our students were not identifying as readers. Librarians were sharing that on interest surveys students were saying, âI donât read booksâ, âI havenât read a book since elementary schoolâ, âI donât like readingâ. Qualitatively our librarians noticed that students werenât carrying books around with them, they werenât talking about books that they were reading, and fewer teachers were talking about books that were new and hot.
Summer reading had become a dreaded assignment, most teachers had actually abandoned it as a practice because âthe kids just donât do itâ. Around this time, a group got together to explore the problem, talk about root causes, analyze data, and comb through research. From this work, the team began small projects/interventions, launching the #schenectadyreads campaign.
What started as a small wonder, âWhat if we could change attitudes about reading so that students identified as readers?â Soon snowballed into a transformative literacy experience for our district, and our community.
While our book events (ex: book clubs, block parties, and Book Mobile) have mostly targeted Schenectady City School District children, we have found that we provide books to parents, grandparents, and other community members. Literacy is a community issue and we soon realized that our efforts were helping provide access and positive experiences around reading and literacy for both our students and the community.
In our district we believe that race, economics, and disability should no longer be predictors of student achievement. We know that in order for students to be successful in the 21st century, they must first have access, in order to have opportunities, to develop the learning skills, literacy skills, and life skills necessary for the 21st century.
We look to organizations like ISTE, to help guide our work on how we create innovative learning environments for our students. The standards serve as anchors, we we respond flexibly to the âconstantly evolving technological landscapeâ (https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students). The standards allow us to think about the dispositions of the learner and how we can cultivate those dispositions and provide equity for all of our students, especially our students of color.
We believe that literacy and access to reading materials is a civil rights issue. As such, we have to closely examine barriers that exist for our students and work to remove those barriers - especially for our families of color. As a team we identified that in order to tackle the negative narrative that existed about reading we had to create access and opportunities for our students to read, talk, share, and promote texts that serve as âwindows, mirrors, or sliding glass doorsâ (Rudine Sims Bishop, 1990) with their friends, families, and teachers/librarians.
Objective 1 was to create positive reading experiences where kids could identify as readers. We knew we had to create a jolt into the reading identities of our students. A series of author visits, book clubs, dances, and our book mobile became opportunities for these experiences. We promoted events through social media, collaborated with community organizations including the Schenectady County Public Library and utilized our teacher and administrative social networks to leverage staff support.
Objective 2 was to provide students with access to carefully curated texts, through our mobile library (book mobile) where we utilized our library management system (Destiny) to check books at our stops. The curation of the right texts for our students and families was a critical part of this objective. Providing students, families, and community members with books that serve as windows and mirrors - that capture their stories was the foundation of the work. Our team came to the realization that the issue wasnât that our students and families didnât want to read, rather they did not always find books that were representative of them. Our mobile library, mitigates for this factor by carefully curating texts that represent our student population. They are books by authors of color about people of color. Without fail, at all of our stops, parents comment, "I've never seen so many books by people of color!" We know that this is IMPORTANT for engagement and motivation. Additionally, the mobile library visited areas of the city that were most deprived of access to our public libraries and represented the poorest areas of our city.
Objective 3 was to destigmatize reading. We worked to create experiences that instilled a joy and excitement about reading. We designed positive and authentic ways for students to share reading experiences through social media platforms, things like Book Bentos, Book Snaps, Digital Book Clubs, and Video Book Talks have been favorites among our students. We utilized the #schenectadyreads across social media to link the literacy work of our students and teachers. We knew we were moving toward our goal when one of our librarians said, âI didnât have to do any promotional work for our book clubs, kids came into the library, first day of school, asking, when is book club starting?â
We created a problem statement, a theory of action, and a slogan. We met as a team to continue to go back to our objectives to ensure that we were focused. At times, in the parks we visited with our book mobile, people would ask if they could donate books. While we knew that this was generous, we recognized that the books they were donating did not align with our objectives. We would kindly suggest other places for the donations so as not to compromise our mission. We collect data (circulation statistics, event distribution numbers, staff/faculty numbers, social media presence - likes, retweets, shares, survey results for interest and âplaces to hang in the cityâ, and most importantly the number of people that have books in their hands), we analyze this data for trends or patterns. We use the data to help shape and guide our literacy events and activities.
We believe that the numbers speak for themselves- the number of kids that have participated in book clubs has increased (3900 total - 800 in â16-17, 3100 in 2018), the number of book exchanges at our book mobile has increase (2267 total - 267 in â16-17, 2200 in â17-18), and the number of staff participating has gone from 25 to 300+. Beyond our quantifiable data, we have noticed a palpable change in the ways that teachers, staff, parents, community members, and students talk about themselves as readers. Teachers and faculty volunteer to do book clubs and work the book mobile - clubs are held before school, after school, or during lunches, the book mobile events are held during the summer months. Our students are carrying around books, they are learning about books that they love, genres that they will devour, and most importantly, they are talking with one another, or sharing digitally, their reading experiences. While we hover at a 60-65% return rate, we are ok with it because we know, the books have found new homes where they are loved and adored!
We started with a team that worked tirelessly to change the narrative around reading. We engaged in a problem solving process, explored root causes, crafted a theory of action, established a mission with clear objectives, and branded with a slogan. The team met regularly, studied data, and kept focus on the objectives. This process created action steps (literacy activities and events) that would uphold the mission, while achieving the objectives.
Problem Statement: Far too many of our students have become âaliterateâ and have disconnected with reading. We are not motivating and engaging our students in reading and forming reading identities.
TOA: If we, with our community partners, create literacy experiences (including a mobile library) that reflect contemporary, relevant, and culturally responsive texts and, if we promote and provide access for students to check out books during the summer months (and within the school year) in places where they gather, then our students will be more likely to engage in reading and we will create a new, more positive narrative, about reading.
Mission: #schenectadyreads initiative designed to promote, provide access, and celebrate reading! We work to provide SCSD students with access to diverse, trending, and brand new reading material throughout the year and during the summer months. The Bookmobile is one way that we promote and celebrate reading. It stop at a variety of community events, parks, and meal sites. At our stops we construct a mini-library and the Bookmobile opens for business.
