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While Prince George’s County has embarked on an aggressive endeavor to rebuild old school buildings, many of the classrooms currently in use are several decades old.
Now, the Maryland school system is getting help from the Pull Up Fund, whose founder is a graduate of Eleanor Roosevelt High School, to spruce up many of its libraries.
These renovated libraries, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars each, are all being paid for by a donor who grew up in the county and donated the money to the nonprofit Heart of America. One of the first new libraries to open is at Andrew Jackson Academy in District Heights.
“When I first came here five years ago, it was in shambles,” Principal Warren Tweedy said. “Antiquated, terrible flooring, old books, shelving … we needed new lights. We just needed a lot of things.”
This fall, he got all that and then some.
Heart of America helped transform the school’s media center. There’s new lighting, new shelves, new furniture and flooring. The walls are painted a bright and vibrant color with inspirational quotes in English and Spanish found throughout.
And the new library also came with new books — lots and lots of new books.
“They were diverse books,” Tweedy said. “So it met the needs of our diverse populations here at the school, because we have about 23 different ethnicities within the building. Just to see yourselves in a book, it’s pivotal for a kid when it comes to their academic success.”
The process of remodeling the libraries is being overseen by Heart of America, a decades-old nonprofit that focuses on transforming learning environments in schools and community centers.
A total of 47 different libraries around Prince George’s County are getting remodeled through the large donation. One of them is a professional library dedicated to training librarians that will staff libraries across the school system.
Most renovations will be finished by the end of the year, and those behind the project said there’s no time to waste.
“These students that are here now don’t have an opportunity to make these important … developmental gains a year from now, five years from now,” said John Flynn, vice president of innovation with Heart of America. “Their development is happening real-time as we speak.”
Across the school system, libraries are getting high-tech learning resources, along with the heart of any library, books — 72,000 of them. And the environment those books live in will foster learning too.
“We use custom graphics, inspirational quotes, innovative design,” Flynn said. “Because we know today’s students and communities operate how they do today, but there’s a tomorrow that we need to prepare for.”
The new library at the academy includes a 3D printer and a poster maker.
“The children are so excited. They’re coming up with wonderful ideas,” Andrew Jackson Academy librarian LaDonna Perkins said.
But as excited as the students are every time they walk in, she might be even more excited about showing up to work every day.
“I believe that the library is the heartbeat of the school,” Perkins said. “We are a place where people can gather and read and do other searching for information in a different atmosphere.”
The schools were all given different templates to choose from to help shape the direction of the library. Some libraries were designed to be STEM or STEAM focused.
Others were collective learning and literacy hubs. That’s the direction Andrew Jackson Academy went.
“So often today’s libraries and schools are antiquated,” said Jill Hardy Heath, president and CEO of Heart of America. “They’re forgotten spaces, when they really need to be the pinnacle of the school.”
While Heart of America has done this to several libraries around the country, remodeling 47 different libraries almost at once is the largest undertaking they’ve ever had.
“It has provided our kids the opportunity to really become more invested in reading, and it creates a better school culture,” Tweedy said. “Kids are now excited about coming to the library. They’re now starting to see the purpose and meaning of reading and how it can take you to many places in this world.”
And it’s a dream come true for Perkins.
“I usually stay late because there’s so much that I want to get out to the children,” she said. “I’m still going through things. I love to read the books that we get because then I can talk about them in a more profound way. And I love sharing the books with the children. That’s my greatest joy of being a librarian, sharing the stories that we have with the children.”
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