First on the Wish List for Last-Chance Kids: Books

You might not imagine it at the top of the students’ “wish list” on a campus like this. . . . Maybe a smokers’ patio. A few more basketball hoops. Or a sound system in the lunchroom bungalow.

But a library . . . at a school some consider little more than a holding pen for last-chance kids?

Well, that’s exactly what the students at West Hollywood Opportunity Center requested when asked to identify their school’s most pressing need. That is what they spent the past two years working to establish.

And that is what they will create, when the first truckload of books arrives next week.

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“Our vision of a library is a place where you could go read a novel or just get away from everyone,” the students’ grant application reads.

And it was little more than a vision when they set to work, because many had never been inside a public library.

Their campus--a handful of bungalows near Fairfax and Santa Monica boulevards--is too small and too unorthodox to merit the funding that Los Angeles Unified allocates for school libraries.

Its student population is shifting constantly and is composed largely of kids expelled from other schools, in trouble at home or just out of jail.

The school district, they wrote, “might think the students are not going to be around long . . . and doesn’t trust [us] to be responsible enough to maintain a library.”

But “we need a library because we would like to obtain a higher education by reading books which can explain different subjects in school. . . . Some students would like to read a book once in a while to keep them occupied.”

The idea first surfaced through the process associated with the LEARN program of school reform. A mentor assigned to the school met with teachers, students and parents to identify the school’s greatest needs.

Students suggested the library, and the coach pointed them toward the Joseph Drown Foundation, a Century City philanthropic group that funds efforts to improve education, health and social services in underprivileged communities.

The first meeting to plan the project drew only one student, but as momentum grew on campus, the student contingent grew--and took control.

“We wound up doing everything,” says Valerie Serna, a bubbly 15-year-old who ended up at West Hollywood because she kept cutting classes at Fairfax High.

“The teachers, they gave us support and advice how to word some things. And they let us use the computers to write up the grant and bought us folders so it would look nice.”

But it was the students who decided where to put the library (in a storage room large enough to accommodate wall shelves and a few tables and chairs), and how and when it will operate (one period each day, staffed by students).

They polled their classmates on what types of books to order, met with officials at the downtown library to get “hooked up” with purchasing sources and figured out a budget for furniture and books.

They presented their grant proposal to the Drown Foundation last fall and in January got word that they’ll receive $26,000 to launch their library.

It is a triumph on several fronts, an uncommon victory for students so accustomed to failure--even their parents don’t yet believe.

It demonstrates the potential of school reform, how benefits can trickle down through the process and reach the children most in need.

And it validates the effort of teachers dedicated to working with hard-core students at schools like these . . . teachers like Pat Merrill, credited by the students with shoring them up with her faith, her willingness to believe.

“Miss Merrill, she made this all possible. She was always in our corner,” says 18-year-old Andres Navarro.

The other students nod.

“She’s here when we come at 8 in the morning, and I see her here--I see the lights on in her classroom--at 8 o’clock at night,” says Valerie, who lives near the school.

The kids tease her.

“Miss Merrill, you really need to get a life,” they say. But her dedication doesn’t pass unnoticed.

“If somebody’s willing to work that hard for you, you can’t ignore it,” Valerie says. “You don’t want to disappoint them.”

Until now, students have considered Merrill’s classroom “the library,” with its stacks of old National Geographics, storybooks, textbooks and encyclopedias.

But her donated collection is hardly enough to meet the students’ diverse needs.

“We’ve got some kids reading at grade level, but others might be 17 and reading at about second-grade level,” Merrill explains.

“They’ve got high-level interests, but low-level skills, and the typical second-grade reader isn’t going to hold their interest. We haven’t been able to engage those students, to meet their needs.”

With the grant, students will be able to buy about 100 reference books, dozens of magazine subscriptions, 500 paperback novels and 300 nonfiction volumes--ranging from biographies to books on depression and drug abuse. The library will also include audio books, to bring the written word to those who can’t yet read.

“It’s their library, their choices and their responsibility,” Merrill says. “It may be a surprise to some people, but these kids really wanted a library.”

Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.