School District of Philadelphia, East Regional Office

The School District of Philadelphia (SDP), partnering with the Philadelphia Alliance to Restore School Librarians, will investigate strategies used by large urban school districts to reinstate school librarians and develop a replicable district model of school library renewal. The project activities will include gathering and publishing strategies from urban school districts that successfully restored librarian positions; investigating and publishing options for recruiting a diverse pool of school librarian candidates; and creating a replicable plan using SDP as a model to restore effective school libraries with certified librarians. All districts can benefit from the project’s findings and adaptable tools and resources. This project will serve as a model and be useful to other school and library leaders recognizing the need to reinstate certified school librarians and effective libraries as a school improvement strategy for their K–12 students.