WICKER PARK — A Wicker Park school may not have a library after it was closed earlier this year. But that doesn't mean reading has stopped being an important part of A.N. Pritzker Elementary School.
A six-hour "Read-a-Thon" at Pritzker, 2009 W. Schiller St. was held last week after the librarian position was eliminated by budget cuts in October. Although parents had volunteered to staff the library, the Chicago Teachers Union objected and the plan was killed. The library has been closed since then.
"Although we still do not have a library, we want to show the community that our students are still reading and making the most of the situation," said Molly DiRago, parent of first-grader Scarlett Hendershot, who she described as "a bookworm" who takes books with her everywhere she goes.
Principal Joenile Albert-Reese noted that students read more than 500,000 minutes in February.
"This was no small feat and it symbolized the fact that we are still encouraging our students to read," she said.
In January, DiRago's husband, Michael Hendershot, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that attracted national attention about the situation at the school, 2009 W. Schiller St., and how they were unable to volunteer to staff the library.
From 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, students in kindergarten through sixth grade took turns filing into the auditorium for 30-minute sessions of reading. That included solitary reading for the older students — many clutched paperbacks like "The Hunger Games" and Reina Telgemeier's graphic novels — and a parent-led storytelling time for younger readers.
About 20 parents from the school's Parent Teacher Organization including DiRago organized the event in collaboration with teachers and Reese.
The Read-a-Thon coincided with the National Education Association's 20th annual "Read Across America Day" and the birthday of author "Dr. Seuss."
After participating in the Read-a-Thon, each child affixed a Dr. Seuss ribbon in the school hallway and at the end of the day, four donated Dr. Seuss-inspired paintings were raffled off as well.
Third-grade teacher Katie Bogacki said that her students, who also participated in the Read-a-Thon, spend the first 10 minutes of every school day engaged in silent reading.
Bogacki's room has a small library as do most other classrooms, she said.
"My readers are a bit too old for Dr. Seuss. We have been continuing to make reading important," Bogacki said.
While students also have reading classes, each student used to have an hourlong library class each week, where they learned how to research, how to use databases and how to access other sources of information, said Rachel Lessem, a member of the local school council at Pritzker. The students had homework and grades in library as well.
Currently, the library space is being used for other classes like dance and tutoring. No books can be be checked in or out.
In a statement issued in January, the teachers union said the solution to budget cuts at Pritzker is not filling paid jobs with parent volunteers but "advocating for restoration of lost funding and its librarian position."
Some of the many books enjoyed by Pritzker students during "Read Across America" [DNAinfo/Alisa Hauser]
Donated Dr. Seuss-inspired paintings were raffled off as part of the school's "Read Across America Celebration."
