Jeremy Lent Photo
Every student at Davis Street 21st Century Magnet School was handed an application for a New Haven library card, but fourth grader Vernon Sprill didn’t need one. He’s had a library card for over a year now, and he’s checked out nearly 30 books since January.
That’s good news for Tatiana Aries (at right in the above photo), the children’s librarian at Mitchell Branch Library.
Aries visited Davis Street on Tuesday to collect library card applications from students who don’t yet have a card. Aries also talked to each class she visited about the New Haven Public Library summer reading program, through which students can win a prize for every two hours they read (up to a total of 10 hours).
Sprill (at left in the photo) said that he likes reading for more than just the prizes. “What I like best about reading is that it helps me with my fluency, grammar and spelling words,” he said.
That’s music to the ears of Davis Street teachers and administrators, who are working to live up to their status since March as a “Tier One” school under New Haven’s pilot school reform program.
As part of this effort, Lucia Rafala, the school’s media specialist, wants to see a library card in the hands of every Davis student. The student body is nearing a 100 percent library card rate, which is especially important given the current economic climate, in Rafala’s view.
“Library books are free resources, and there are so many more of them in the public libraries than what I can provide in the school library,” she said.
Rafala is also keen to see Davis students reading over the summer since all the books they read will count towards Davis’s standing in the Governor’s Summer Reading Challenge. As part of the Challenge, which has been held each summer since 1996, Connecticut schools report the average number of books read per student during the summer months. The most book-wormy schools are recognized in the fall; Rafala hopes to see Davis among the winners this year.
As for Aries, she hopes to see more Davis students around the Mitchell library, which will be hosting “Booktivities” every other Thursday from June through August. Most of the Booktivities are water-themed (for instance, a paper boat-building event), to go along with the “Make a Splash” children’s reading program taking place throughout the New Haven Public Library system this summer.
The water theme came alive for Davis students Tuesday afternoon — - perhaps more than Aries intended — - when an unplanned fire alarm interrupted one of Aries’s classroom presentations and sent the student body filing outside, right into the beginning of a late spring thunderstorm.
After a few minutes’ worth of drenching, students and teachers were permitted to take refuge in the school gymnasium as the source of the fire alarm was investigated. Aries, wet but undeterred, took the opportunity to remind the entire student body that “there’s a wonderful world out there when you pick up a book. Reading can take you wonderful places” — apparently even if those places are wet.
