 A consolidated community school district serving three villages in south Cook County joined forces with the three village public libraries to offer improved leisure reading programs for pre-K through the eighth grade. The program served six schools with a combined enrollment of 2,552 students. The three municipalities are Tinley Park, Orland Park and Oak Forest.
Before participating in the program, librarians at each school reviewed their holdings and found one glaring impediment to effective testing of participating students. In the program, students are challenged to read books from a designated book list. Upon completion, the student takes a reading comprehension test and if successfully passed, receives a prescribed number of points. Conclusively, all librarians recognized that each school library lacked many books in their collection that matched the test disks. Additional finances to the libraries would be needed to improve the targeted efforts of the reading program. None of the schools had budgets that included any extra money.
 The three public libraries, the Tinley Park Public Library, the Orland Public Library and the Acorn Public Library District at Oak Forest, all suggested the district apply to the Illinois State Library through one of their Library Services Technology Act (LSTA). LSTA is a federal grant program administered by the Illinois State Library. The district did apply and a letter from Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White, dated March 29, 1999, informed Jacquelyn Davis, grant Project Director for Tinley Park School District 146, their grant, in the amount of $40,000, had been awarded.
The grant, in part, was awarded because of the extent of community involvement that included the school district, students and parents, as well as the input of the three libraries. The project was designed to increase circulation and strengthen student-reading skills. To do so, Project Director Davis and each librarian in the six schools, purchased materials that motivated students to read a wide variety of books, built upon their successes and directed them to the selection of more challenging text to acquire higher reading skills.
Since many of the books were not in any collection within the six schools, the first order of business was to develop a book order specific to each school to strengthen the usefulness of the program. Upon receipt of the grant money, an update to Accelerated Reader, was sent to the districts supporting partners (public libraries) and made available to district staff. With all the elements in place, students, staff and parents were able to identify and secure project-reading materials from a variety of locations. They were able to use school, community library or home facilities to review a print journal or use the computer to access the school’s database for project information.
 A database was maintained on each student participating in the program to record achievement levels. Teachers would monitor participation and achievement levels, making adjustments to reading instruction as needed.
According to Project Director Jacquelyn Davis, the success of the program hinges on and can be mostly attributed to "the belief in the importance of developing and strengthening reading skills for academic success held by all members of the learning community".
"The school community strongly supports each others growth. The encouragement and collaborative involvement of our local public libraries assisted us in designing the plan for a wider home/school/community connection. This has truly been a boost and positive effect on our reading program," Davis said.
For further information regarding this grant contact Jacquelyn Davis, Community Consolidated School District 146, Administrative Center, 6611 W. 171st Street, Tinley Park, IL 60477-3314, telephone 708-614-4500.)
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