Hampton takes school libraries to students
HAMPTON — There’s something special about a library.
For Phoebus High School teacher librarian Thomas Worrell, it’s the magic of finding something new. It’s easy to order a book online if you know exactly what you want. But it’s harder to replicate picking a book off a shelf, discovering new authors and genres.
“You forget how excited the kids can be just to flip through books and find something that looks interesting to them,” Worrell said. “Half the fun in using Netflix and watching a movie is flipping through and deciding which movie you’re going to watch.”
School libraries in Hampton remain quiet for the most part, but the district is trying to replicate that feeling with a new mobile library program. Every few weeks, buses have fanned out across the city carrying thousands of books for students to check out.
The district will make its biggest push yet on Friday, hoping to make sure as many
students as possible have something to read over winter break.
“They’re spending a lot of time online and on their Chromebooks and being in Zoom,” said Karen Soter, teacher librarian at Jones Magnet Middle School. “I know that they like having a physical book in their hand.”
It’s generally accepted that virtual learning doesn’t work for all students, though the extent of the damage that extended school closures have caused isn’t well understood. One of the biggest potential impacts, raised early on in closures, is the impact on early childhood literacy. Reading habits in kindergarten through third grade are strongly correlated with future success.
Kelli Cedo, Hampton’s K-12 English language arts curriculum leader, says independent reading done outside of class is critical. But to reach the district’s goal of 20 minutes of reading a day, students have to have something to read.
“It’s a big part of our literacy program, that transfer and application,” Cedo said. “I can sit there and hear my teacher and she can model and things, but without that transfer of me doing it, I’m not going to grow as a reader.”
Bookmobiles aren’t a new idea, and schools across the region have taken a number of different approaches like drive-thru pick
ups to get books in the hands of students. But pick-ups require students finding a way to get to the school.
At the start of the school year, Soter had the idea that the schools could bring the libraries to the students using buses, allowing them to both return and check out new books.
“It really started to bother me at the end of the summer,” Soter said. “I was thinking about all these
beautiful books that we have and that the kids weren’t able to get to them.”
The book buses have gone out twice so far, on Oct. 23 and Nov. 20, lending hundreds of books. The city was divided into four quadrants, with each bus making seven stops.
Worrell, whose quadrant covered the northeastern part of the city, was excited to have a chance to interact with students again.
“We are still here,” Worrell said. “We haven’t forgotten about them.”
Soter said they will continue the book bus program as long as virtual learning lasts. The next event, named BUSter’s Book Bus Bazaar after the program’s mascot Buster, is happening Friday.
Students from elementary through high school can check out books for three weeks. The district has a full schedule of stops online at tinyurl.com/yybs8a7n. All four buses will meet also at Kroger at 1050 W. Mercury Blvd. from 3 to 4 p.m.
“It’s a way for us to connect with our kids, letting them know that the libraries are still here, librarians are thinking of them,” Soter said. “It’s a way for us to give them some normalcy.”