Crane Country Day School librarian Traci Cope usually enjoys the summer off, when the library is closed and she can catch up on her own reading. But when COVID-19 forced public libraries to shutter their doors, Cope knew she had to find a way to support Crane families.
She knew students needed reading material, especially in pandemic times, yet she could not foresee the gift of community-building that came with opening Crane’s doors.
Students were invited to return to the campus they had left unexpectedly in March, allowing them to reconnect to their school, and providing new students with a chance to engage with the campus they never got to tour.
By the end of the summer, more than 2,000 books had been checked out, and students read a grand total of 1,014,420 pages.
“The open library hours and the school’s reading challenge gave us something positive to focus on during this bleak time,” said Katie whose first-grade daughter Hattie was a frequent library visitor. In the course of three months, Hattie read 225 books — or 13,000 pages.
“Mrs. Cope was wonderful at suggesting books that discussed diversity, equity and inclusion, so that we could talk about issues impacting our world in an age-appropriate manner,” said Katie, who piled on books like “Goin’ Someplace Special with Star Wars” and “Cinderella.”
“I let them take as many books as they could carry,” said Cope, who scheduled private, socially distant, 20-minute appointments with time in between to sanitize the library. “It was like Nordstrom concierge service for books.”
“Every time we arrived at the library Mrs. Cope was waiting for us with so many options and ideas,” said Gabriela, a Crane mom whose daughter Vida is a voracious reader. “Vida and Mrs. Cope were like kindred spirits. It was wonderful to see Vida being met at her reading level.”
Fueling this reading frenzy was Crane’s annual summer reading challenge, which encourages all students to read a minimum of 1,000 pages, with incentives for reaching 5,000- and 10,000- page levels.
The majority of the students participated in the challenge, and 46 students read 10,000-plus pages, qualifying them for lunch with the headmaster Joel Weiss, when it’s safe to do so.
Vida set a goal of 10,000 pages but kept building on that until she reached her final summer tally of 31,339 pages, breaking all Crane reading records.
“I would visit the library and take as many books as I could carry,” said Vida, who once carted home 34 books home.
Vida says her ideal reading spot is her bedroom where she enjoys breakfast in bed with her book. “I also like reading before bedtime, and in the mid-afternoon, lazy time of day,” she said.
Vida carries a book (or two) with her nearly everywhere she goes, and that included on a long family drive to Wisconsin this summer. While she loves mythology and adventure she proclaims the Percy Jackson series among her favorites.
“We’ve never done anything like this before,” said Cope. “It was just amazing to meet many new families and reunite with current students.”
Cope said she’s committed to keeping the library open as long as there are remote students. Her appointments include weekends and evenings to accommodate working parents. Cope said the books need to be quarantined for 72 hours before being re-shelved.
“Our trips to the Crane library were our summer adventure,” said Hattie’s mom. “We are so grateful to Mrs. Cope and to the school for giving us access to books and the wonderful escape that reading provides.”
Country Day School recently received approval to hold in-person instruction for grades K-5 and will have staggered start dates beginning Oct. 1 for K-2, followed by grades three, four and five returning Oct. 12. Grades six-eight will stay remote until Santa Barbara County is in the red tier for 14 days.
The school will provide remote learning for the duration of the year for all students who are not comfortable returning to campus.
For admission information, contact Erin Guerra, 805-969-7732 ext. 106 or visit www.craneschool.org.