Little School District Wins Big
This year's School Library Media Programs of the Year
Staff -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2000
The Irving (TX) Independent School District won the SLMPY award in the large school district category. Irving had previously won the award in 1991. "We were in the forefront in 1991, so we knew we were on the right track," says Caroline Kinzle, Irving's director of library and media services. Illinois's New Trier Township High School took honors in the single school category. New Trier, located in an affluent suburb north of Chicago, plans to use its award money to fund a library media program at an inner-city school.
Londonderry (NH) School District is New Hampshire's first winner of a School Library Media Program of the Year (SLMPY) award. The Londonderry School District, which won in the small school district category, will receive $7,000 from Follett Library Resources, which sponsors the award. Jim Bennett, chair of the SLMPY committee this year and a former board member of the Association for School Librarians, which administers the awards, noted that Londonderry won because of its obvious commitment to "external partnerships with the community," a critical part of the new Information Power guidelines. Sue Ballard, the district's director of library, media, and technology, says that because New Hampshire has fewer taxes than many other states, less state funding goes to schools. "The local community really has to dig deep into its pockets to give money to us, and that means that we have to work hard to prove ourselves," she says.
