Oakland Technical High students form group to advocate for library access
on March 23, 2018
California has the worst ratio in the nation for librarians to public school students — there is only one for every 7,000 students. Oakland Technical High School has had a library with no librarian for years. Recently, a group of students turned a class assignment about social justice into a new group, which they called Students for Library Improvement. Click the video above to see how the club advocates for their library and school.
Currently, the school and the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) are working together to keep the library open for the rest of the year. For next year, the school has included a full-time library technician in its budget, and is currently seeking to fill this position. According to Laura Impellizzeri, PTSA President, volunteers will be needed “to support continuing enhancement of the library.”
On March 25, the student library club, the PTSA and school administrators are hosting the second clean up the library day at the school, from 9 am to 3 pm.
Oakland North welcomes comments from our readers, but we ask users to keep all discussion civil and on-topic. Comments post automatically without review from our staff, but we reserve the right to delete material that is libelous, a personal attack, or spam. We request that commenters consistently use the same login name. Comments from the same user posted under multiple aliases may be deleted. Oakland North assumes no liability for comments posted to the site and no endorsement is implied; commenters are solely responsible for their own content.
Oakland North
Oakland North is an online news service produced by students at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and covering Oakland, California. Our goals are to improve local coverage, innovate with digital media, and listen to you–about the issues that concern you and the reporting you’d like to see in your community. Please send news tips to: oaklandnorthstaff@gmail.com.
