Lois Lenski Covey Foundation

2012 School Library Grant Application

Lanier Elementary School K-5 School name ____________________________________________________ Grades served _________ 4782 Thompson Bridge Road Gainesville GA 30506 Address _______________________________City__________________ State ____ Zip _____________ http://hallco.org/lanieres/site/ School website address _________________________________________________________________

A. TELL US ABOUT YOUR COMMUNITY

Tell us about the community in which your school is located. (Setting, economic conditions, and special circumstances are appropriate.)
Lanier Elementary is located in the North Hall County area of northeast Georgia. With a population of approximately 36,000, Gainesville is an interesting combination rural and suburban settings, with an urban environment within the city limits. Chicken is a major industry in Georgia, making for a high Hispanic population. Gainesville is suffering with large unemployment rates like other parts of the country. The area immediately surrounding Lanier Elementary is quite rural. Many of our students are not encouraged to read at home, so we are in need of an excellent library media center book collection in order to provide materials that interest them. Over half of our student body comes from a family with a low socioeconomic status. This also indicates that some of these students do not have resources at home to encourage a love of reading. Our teachers work hard to make sure each student reads on grade level, but the nonfiction section of our media center is very outdated and has severe gaps.

B. TELL US ABOUT YOUR SCHOOL

729 Number enrolled ______ 56 Percentage qualified for free or reduced lunch programs _________ %

9 Percentage of students reading below grade level: _________%

Specify the percentage reading below grade level in individual grades:

7 12 10 8 8 N/A N/A N/A 1st ____%; 2nd ____%; 3rd ____% 4th _____%; 5th _____%; 6th _____%; 7th _____%; 8th _____%

Tell us about pertinent school challenges and achievements. (Evidence of outstanding service to children is appropriate.)
The main challenge we face at Lanier Elementary is the low socioeconomic status of our students. This is directly related to a low interest level of our parents, making it difficult to get these students interested in reading for pleasure or information and gaining basic literacy skills. The teachers at Lanier Elementary focus on having standards-based classrooms and instructional practices. Library materials are used frequently in order to support the delivery of curriculum content. Lanier Elementary has made Adequate Yearly Progress for the past several years. In addition, the school has made several gains in some subject areas. For more information on these improvements in scores, visit http://www.education.com/schoolfinder/us/georgia/gainesville/lanier-elementary-school/#test-scores .

C. TELL US ABOUT YOUR SCHOOL LIBRARY

56 Age of facility: _______ years

Square footage of library: __________

40 Number of hours per week library is open during the school year: __________ hrs. 2 Number of full time library staff: _____
Master's in Library Media Technology Training of full time library staff: __________________________________________________________

0 Number of part time library staff _____, who work a combined ______ hours weekly. N/A Training of part time library staff: _________________________________________________________

Please attach a two photos representative of the interior of your library. If you cannot provide photos, explain why here:

Number of library computers for students to use:

11 _________

164 Number of student computers elsewhere on campus: _________

(This includes all computers for students; including those in computer labs on campus no matter their location, computers on mobile computer carts, and classroom computers set aside for students.)

Number of individual pre-K through 8th grade students that use the library at least once a week: 438 _________ individual students
(A number must be provided. It is important that this number accurately reflect the use of the library by individual children. Please estimate, as accurately as possible, the number of children that use your library in a weeks time. Do not count multiple visits as separate children.)

How many childrens books (books published for children pre-school through 8th grade) are in your 11,853 collection? _______ (Do not include reference books, text books, or classroom collections.) In what condition are the childrens books? Provide percentages.
40 ___ % Excellent (new and in good condition)
40 ___ % Good (not new, but in good condition)

20 ___ % Fair (well used, but not overly-deteriorated) 0 ___ % Poor (significantly damaged, close to unusable)*

*If more than 10% of collection is in poor condition, provide explanation:

What special programs does your library offer children to encourage reading and library use:
Lanier Elementary has a wide range of reading incentive programs for each grade level. All of these grade level incentives give rewards to students who meet their specific reading goal each nine-week period. New book promotions are used in order to get student excited about brand new books the school has purchased. Book Fairs and the awarding of free books are also used to get students excited about reading new materials.

D. TELL US HOW LLCF GRANT FUNDS WILL BE USED

What type(s) of childrens books do you need?
We are in desperate need of specific nonfiction/informational titles to supplement the Dewey Decimal section of our media center.

How was this need determined?

With the implementation of the new Common Core Standards this year, informational writing and reading is included throughout the year, rather than during one quarter. Therefore, a larger number of teachers and students will require a wider variety of nonfiction titles throughout the entire school year. Some of these specific content areas are not represented in our current collection, while some books with these topics are very outdated.

How many childrens books are needed, at what total cost?

150 Number of books: _______

Total cost: How has this cost determined?
The average cost of books on our nonfiction wish list is $15. We are in need of approximately 150 books to supplement our nonficiton section, so the overall cost will be around $2,250.

2,250 $ _______

What special plans (events, displays, publicity) do you have to use the acquisition of additional books to encourage greater library use and foster a love of reading?
Several book displays will be used in order to make students aware of our new nonfiction titles. In addition, the media specialist will introduce new titles to individual classes, while briefly discussing the importance of informational books and how they will apply to the school year. Teachers will be encouraged to read the new titles aloud in order to encourage students to check them out repeatedly.

E. TELL US ABOUT YOUR LIBRARY BUDGET

What are your historic and projected expenditures for the purchase of childrens books? (Books published for children pre-school through 8th grade.) Use the table below to document dollar amounts from the last three years, and your projected amounts for
2012-13. Do not include a hoped-for Lenski Covey grant in 2012-13 projected amount. If your budget includes monies for non-literature items (overhead lamps, supplies, etc.), do not include that portion.

Budgeted *
2012-13 2011-12 2010-11 2009-10
N/A
8,148
8,676

Grants
N/A
0
0

$ Donations
N/A
0
0

Other Income **
N/A
3,000
3,000

Total ***
N/A
11,148
11,676

8,432

3,000

11,432

* dollars provided by the administrators of your library ** other fundraising such as book fairs, bake sales, etc. *** total of previous four columns

Complete budget information is required. We cannot accept applications where any of the above cells are blank; use 0 if appropriate. Provide the source of grants of $1,000 or more:

Provide explanation of budgets that contain zero dollars, and any drop in budgeted dollars of over 50 percent:
No grants have been awarded. No donations have been made to the school media center.

F. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION (optional)

If desired, give additional information that you feel would be useful to our directors in considering your application by attaching no more than one extra page. The appended page needs to contain explanatory text that you have written yourself. Do not append book lists, printouts of state/local income data, or collection age lists. Check here if you have opted to add information:

How did you learn of the Lois Lenski Covey Foundation library grant program?
http://librarygrants.blogspot.com/

For the Lois Lenski Covey Foundation's future use (not for 2012 applications), we would be interested in knowing if you have the capability of submitting your grant application and photo attachments electronically?

Yes No
Allison Hedden Teacher

Name of contact person ___________________________ Position ____________________ Contact email address ____________________________ Phone number _______________ Date: _______________
4/6/12 allison.hedden@hallco.org 770-532-8781

Allison Hedden Signed:_______________________________________________

Digitally signed by Allison Hedden DN: cn=Allison Hedden, o=Lanier Elementary School, ou=Hall County Schools, email=allison.hedden@hallco.org, c=US Date: 2012.04.07 18:34:03 -04'00'