85% of the students at Charleston High School come from
low-income households, and receive free/reduced lunch. Even though the majority
of these students do not come from “ideal” backgrounds, the majority of them
are determined to go to college, in order to both better themselves, and to
become one who changes the perception of what can be achieved with
determination, within their community. Most of the students here believe that
they are “stuck” here, unless they are recognized for playing football or
basketball. There are also those who excel in academics solely with the goal of
earning scholarships for college. It is
my goal to be a positive role model to as many of these students as possible,
in order to give them as much encouragement and information as possible as
pertains to continuing their education AFTER high school. As their school librarian, I feel the need to provide the
students at Charleston High School with the tools they need to adequately use
books and the internet in order to fulfill their research needs.
Currently,
we have approximately 500 books in the school library. This is due to weeding
the collection that has accrued over the span of approximately 50 years, and
had an average copyright date of 1971. After weeding, the collection went from
7,500 titles to 500. The state requires that school libraries have approximately
10 books per student. We have about 450 students within 9-12
grades. That means, we should have 4,500 titles on our shelves. We are short
4,000. The library has a budget for books; however, books are very costly. On
the current budget, it will take us YEARS to build the collection to what it
needs to be.
