As school winds down, the school librarians, Shannon Taylor and Ann Jennings, want students to know about some important library and Chromebook deadlines.
Eighth graders and 12th graders have to turn their Chromebooks in at the end of the year, and 12th graders can turn them in as early as May 1 if they’re finished with all their work. Students can turn them into the librarians, or to Instructional Technology Specialist Kristen Davis in her office off the 3600 locker bay.
Taylor explained that eighth graders will be coming into the library with their classes after the end of exams and SOLS to return their Chromebooks and chargers. For eighth graders with no language arts class, the collection of Chromebooks and chargers will be on May 15 during 4th block.
The fees for damaged Chromebooks include $20 for the first offense and $40 for a second offense. Any more offenses after that will result in a $400 charge, which accounts for almost the entire price of a new Chromebook. If a student loses a Chromebook, it is an automatic $400 charge, plus $40 for a lost charger.
In addition, said Taylor, “Students need to drop off all library books as soon as possible to the library. We have a book return bin outside of the 3rd floor library, one inside the 3rd floor at the circulation desk, and one at the 4th floor circulation desk. If they have lost the book, they will need to pay for it,” she said.
If students don’t end up returning the books they checked out, they will be charged a fee.
“The book price varies depending on the type of book, like Manga is around $10 a book but some of our newer non-fiction research books can be in the $30 plus range,” said Taylor, “We are allotted about $10 per student for books, a number that has not changed since the 1990s, except for a few years where our budget was cut because of severe deficiencies in the schools’ overall budgets. However, book prices have gone up quite a bit in that time,” she said.
Taylor said that they “average about 90 students a day coming into the library, many of them checking out books. Lots of students come in to do Makerspace activities like making Shrinky Dinks or diamond dot stickers.” She added that they have checked out over 2000 books this year, providing literature all school year for every student.
“There actually are more libraries in the U.S. than there are McDonald’s locations, ” said Taylor.
The library has become a safe space for many students, giving them a quiet and creative environment that allows them to work or innovate in a way that is best for them.
“It’s amazing how much focus I see when kids read a good book,” said librarian Ann Jennings.
