Happy School Library Month!

April is School Library Month and we celebrate our teacher librarians all year long. At SFUSD, all of our school librarians are credentialed teachers who plan diverse learning experiences to inspire equitable, active student participation.

Our librarians create spaces for students to connect outside of class: clubs for tinkering, crafting, and of course, reading.

In the fall, SFUSD Libraries turned neighborhood streets into open-air reading rooms. These open-air reading rooms appeared in Chinatown, the Tenderloin, the Panhandle, and in the Mission on Phoenix Day.


Students and families explore an SFUSD Libraries open-air reading room on Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin, Fall 2021.

SFUSD is fortunate to have a rich partnership with the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL), collaborating on events like author talks and initiatives for students like the Scholar Card. This partnership has recently yielded an 8th grade Bi-Coastal Book Club. Two books are being offered this spring, both of them set in Chinatown. David Tung Can't Have A Girlfriend Until He Gets Into An Ivy League School, by Ed Lin, is set in and around New York City, while Last Night At The Telegraph Club, by Malinda Lo takes place here in San Francisco. Teacher-librarians at Hoover, Marina, and Roosevelt recruited interested students and gave them their own copy of the books to read and keep. There was a virtual meet up in February between the three SFUSD schools plus students from two public middle schools in New York City. All students got to visit with Ed Lin virtually in March where they submitted their questions and ate lunch together at each school (at Hoover they also served tea, and at Roosevelt, Big Apple apple fritters!). Students shared how much they enjoyed meeting an author who was so relatable and honest. The meetup with Malinda Lo is set for the end of April with a closing gathering between the schools in May.

In partnership with SFPL, middle school students had a chance to virtually meet with Ed Lin, the author of 'David Tung Can't Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets into an Ivy League School.'

The SF teacher-librarian team wanted to find ways for the students to authentically connect with each other while participating in this special book group. They decided to go the old-school route of becoming penpals. In the past few weeks, students from San Francisco have written postcards to their New York peers expressing their thoughts about the Ed Lin book and curiosities about New York. Those cards were mailed to the New York schools and the replies are on the way.


As part of the Chinatown Book Club, middle school students at Hoover, Roosevelt, and Marina are exchanging postcards with students in New York City public schools to discuss the two books they are reading and ask questions about each other's cities.

 Thank you to our teacher librarians for everything they do!

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