March 2022 Grant Recipients

This project seeks to purchase a book vending machine for school-wide use. The book vending machine will be stocked with new books chosen to appeal to readers in grades 6-8 and are distributed to students by use of a special token. The tokens are earned in a variety of ways: positive behavior (meeting PBIS expectations), meeting reading goals, student raffles, etc. Once the token is distributed to a student, the student uses the token to select a book of their choosing from the vending machine. This book is theirs to keep. The purchase of the vending machine is a one-time purchase but will serve the students for years to come.

Raising reading levels at our middle school (grades 6-8) is a high priority. Our current reading level as a school coming into this 2021-2022 year was a 5.8 and one of our goals this year is to increase that by one grade level. This vending machine will help support our students' love for reading and in turn, will help them succeed in all of their classes.

Expected outcomes include increases in positive behaviors, overall reading levels, reading for pleasure, access to books, a shared culture of learning, and a reinforcement of the overall value of reading and its impact on life-long learning.