Student Success

Libraries play a key role in a child’s education. From community to community, a collaborative movement is happening to help students succeed. Building on President Obama’s ConnectED initiative, efforts to leverage the assets of public libraries to enhance student success are proliferating throughout California and throughout the United States.  The Pacific Library Partnership has created the Student Success Initiative, which, over the last three years, has expanded statewide to more than 60 libraries.

Every child in a California public school should have a public library card. Parents think so: 94% of them believe that libraries are important for their children (Pew Research Center, Internet, Science and Tech, 2013)

This is what library communities are saying about the Student Success Initiative:

“This past month, our city mayor mentioned our library/school partnership in his annual State of the City address – audible sounds of approval and excitement were heard in the audience when he announced all kindergartners were getting Folsom Public Library cards.”

We just met with [the administration] from one of our local middle schools. They had heard about how we got our high schoolers student ID cards to work as library cards, and they were excited to do the same.  We suggested that we use the same method of having parents opt out as part of their registration. After hearing us talk for about three minutes, the Vice Principal said that since all the elementary schools in the district share the same registration software, wouldn’t it be easier to just bring up all the elementary schools at the same time we imported the middle school data?  Because of this, we may double the number of cards we issue next fall.Los Gatos Library

We are on the cusp of getting 8,000 cards to high school students.” San Mateo County Libraries

 “We’ve activated 25,068 library cards, representing about 43% of SFUSD in the first 10 months. Scholar Card is making a difference in the lives of SF youth.” San Francisco Public Library

As a result of this initiative, over 1.2 million library cards have been issued to students.  This one page document explains the program. If you have any questions, or would like further information, please feel free to contact us at info@plpinfo.org.

This project was supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.

The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services or the California State Library, and no official endorsement by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services or the California State Library should be inferred.