Help rebuild school libraries of the Gulf Coast

In an effort to help school libraries in the Gulf Coast region, “Weekend Today” joined forces with Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, to launch “Today Turns the Page: A Book Drive for the Gulf Coast.” Below are the profiles of four schools that were devastated by Hurricane Katrina and need to restock their libraries before school begins in August.

Thanks to the generosity of “Today” viewers, at least six schools in the Gulf Coast will be able to rebuild their school libraries, getting the right books onto shelves and into the hands of students.

South Plaquemines High and Elementary Schools
Plaquemines Parish, La.
South Plaquemines High and Elementary schools are new kindergarten through 12th grade

South Plaquemines High & Elementary

schools opening for the 2006-2007 school year. The students attending South Plaquemines will be from the former Buras Elementary, Middle and High schools, which were lost during Hurricane Katrina. It's estimated that prior to the storm, the schools combined had around 1,200 students and a library collection totaling around 25,000 books. Between 600-700 students are hoped to return when the school opens August 11, and a 2,900 square foot library still needs to be stocked with titles for kids of every age and grade level. School librarian Cindy O'Brien says they are also looking to stock resources for parents of students, since public libraries were also wiped out by the storm.

Waveland Elementary School

Waveland Elementary School
Waveland, Miss.
Located in Mississippi, Waveland Elementary is a kindergarten through third grade school. Prior to Katrina, its enrollment was 380 students. When the school year ended in May, it only had 187 children enrolled. Since the storm devastated the city so greatly, many students and their parents are unable to return. Scant housing and job resources are the main reasons. Three feet of water surged into parts of the school, and what the water did not destroy, mold did. The library, which claimed 9,000 books before the storm, has yet to recover. Donations have brought the collection from zero to around 2,000 books. Most of those have been paperback, which educators say will not fare as well as hardback books for such young students. Classes resume on August 5, 2006.

Central Elementary School

Central Elementary School
Pascagoula, Miss.
Very little exists of Pascagoula's Central Elementary School. Katrina destroyed everything except for the walls and floors. As the school tries to prepare for the next school year, it struggles to replace many of the books it lost. The entire book collection is gone. Central is looking for hardback books, elementary non-fiction and even teacher resource materials for classroom use. Also, the school desperately needs an encyclopedia set. Currently, a 1972 encyclopedia donated from a garage is all it has.

McDonogh 32 School

McDonogh 32 School
New Orleans, La.
Located in the hard-hit Algiers area of New Orleans, McDonogh 32 school lost much of its library and still has less than one-third of its original collection nearly one year later. The building itself suffered extensive wind damage and collapsed in some areas. As a result, McDonogh 32 will reopen on September 5, slightly later than many schools. Approximately 700 students attended prior to Hurricane Katrina, and for the upcoming school year, 500-600 students from pre-kindergarten through 8th grade are expected to return.

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