Young readers at the Charter School of Morgan Hill are about to
have a bounty of books to choose from, because the school just
received a $5,000 grant from the Governor
’s Book Fund to build up their library. “Our target, once we are
fully grown, is 8,000 books, based on the number of students we
have,” said CSMH Director Mary Smathers. “Right now, we have about
500. This will at least double the size of our library and get us
closer to our goal.”
Young readers at the Charter School of Morgan Hill are about to have a bounty of books to choose from, because the school just received a $5,000 grant from the Governor’s Book Fund to build up their library.
“Our target, once we are fully grown, is 8,000 books, based on the number of students we have,” said CSMH Director Mary Smathers. “Right now, we have about 500. This will at least double the size of our library and get us closer to our goal.”
Smathers said CSMH was one of two grant recipients in Santa Clara County. Of the 2,200 that applied, only 51 in the state were chosen.
The $5,000 check was presented to Smathers and Tori Calderhead, a fourth-fifth grade combination teacher at the school, by California First Lady Sharon Davis.
“Mrs. Davis has chosen literacy and school libraries as her pet philanthropic project, and this particular grant fund supports those things,” said Smathers. “I had an opportunity to talk to her privately beforehand; she was very nice and very interested in our school. She expressed interest and support for charter schools.”
The purpose of the grant is to help small schools with limited libraries, Smathers said. Many charter schools and continuation high schools start out small, with understocked libraries, and this grant is designed to assist in these types of situations.
The other Santa Clara County school to receive a grant is a continuation high school in the Santa Clara Unified School District.
The charter school’s current library was stocked through the hard work of the school’s library committee, Smathers said.
“The committee was able to pull together a library from a variety of sources,” she said. “Much of it comes from donated books, books from teachers who retired or parents cleaning out bookshelves. We also looked at the School District book giveaways, and we held book fairs where you take your profit in books.”
The staff, Principal Sharon Sousa, and the library committee will work together to identify the books the library needs. The students will probably participate in the selection via a survey.
“Right now, I think we’re a little heavy on the fiction side,” Smathers said. “We probably need to look at some reference books. We need to make sure we have something appropriate for each grade level. Really, we need a little bit of everything.”
The school applied for the grant in October, Smathers said, and was informed last month that the school would receive the grant.
“We were invited to a ceremony with Sharon Davis at the Santa Clara Unified office, and she was there to hand us our check,” she said.
