A New Chapter for School’s Library

Teachers at a Los Angeles school that was allowed to open its $13-million campus with virtually no library books have turned the page in their campaign to fill their empty shelves.

Donations of cash and books by the boxful have arrived at Gratts Elementary School, as embarrassed school officials belatedly approved an emergency $150,000 allocation that will allow children for the first time to check out books.

The pending book-buying spree is being cheered by Gratts’ 50 teachers, who for the last three years have had to march children as young as 5 to a public library nearly a mile away to get books they can take home.

The Los Angeles Unified School District allotment will pay for about 10,000 new library books.

In the meantime, private donations of new and used books from groups and individuals who were shocked by Gratts’ book shortage are adding nearly 3,100 more.

“Thank you, Los Angeles, again,” said the school’s principal, Raul Fernandez.

Until now, Fernandez and his teachers had anticipated waiting up to 10 years for their library shelves to be fully stocked. National and school district guidelines call for the thousand-pupil school to have 18,000 library books.

But when the gleaming Lucas Avenue campus was built in 1995, it opened with fewer than 1,000 volumes. That’s because Fernandez was only able to set aside $15,000 for library books from a campus equipment fund of $300,000.

The library inventory nudged upward last year when the school district kicked in $3,000 for books, and the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce donated $4,000.

Still, Gratts’ library shelves were so bare that students were not allowed to check any books out.

The district’s emergency allocation and the public donations followed a Sept. 19 report in The Times about the book shortage and students’ jaunts to the downtown public library.

School officials characterized the $150,000 as “an advance” against Gratts’ future library book allocations, however. That amount will be deducted from the school’s regular library funding over the next six years.

“We want to get them up to par with other schools quickly,” said James Konantz, the district’s director of instructional technologies.

On average, other Los Angeles school libraries contain between five and eight books per pupil--far below the 18-volume guideline.

By this week, library gifts large and small had been pledged to the Gratts library. They include:

* A $10,000 grant from the California Community Foundation, an 83-year-old organization based in Los Angeles.

* A $10,000 gift from the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce.

* New books worth $2,800 are being donated by Millbrook Press.

* Book drives staged by Westridge School in Pasadena, Pilgrim Lutheran School in Santa Monica, an Eagle Scout at Westside’s University High School and others are promised.

Late last month, school district officials pledged that they would never again allow a school to open without library books.

“We feel badly about Gratts,” said Janet Minami, the district’s director of instructional media.

On Wednesday, officials took the first step toward completing the Gratts’ library by dispatching library experts to the school to begin putting protective covers and inventory bar codes on the school’s existing books.

The workers didn’t have to travel far: Gratts is directly across the street from the school district’s library headquarters.

Ironically, the headquarters is also the site of the school system’s “model library,” a fully equipped demonstration library filled with 8,000 new books and the latest in computer technology.

That library is not open to children.

Bonnie O’Brian, the district’s head librarian, said that’s because it is used to teach new library aides and to show visiting campus administrators the newest library trends and techniques.