It’s time for one of my favorite projects of the year: Student Book Budget. Every year, I reserve a part of the library budget that is under complete control by students. This budget comes from many places. Sometimes it’s a grant and other times it is part of our regular budget. This year their budget comes from the profit we made from book fair. The book budget is their chance to make sure that books are added to our library that represent their interests. They go through a long process to make sure that many voices are represented in their purchases. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing their process. Here are some of the steps that are already happening.
First, I created a Google form application for students to apply to be in the group. The form was available for one week for students in grade 3-5. Every student who applied and had a genuine reason for being in the group was accepted. Our group this year is 40 students strong and has a great mix of boys and girls.
Next, we held our 1st meetings. I met with each grade level group separately and answered all of their questions about the group. Then, in small groups or pairs, they brainstormed things that they thought we should ask on a reading interest survey for the whole school.
Then, I took their ideas and put them into a Google form survey.
I sent the survey to all of the students on the book budget team so that they could review it and decide if it matched their comments. We made some minor adjustments and were ready for the school to be surveyed.
I sent the survey via email to our 3rd-5th grade students who each have their on device. The Student Book Budget Team was responsible for surveying Prek-2nd grade. On our 2nd meeting, we scanned QR codes to get to the survey on an iPad and went to recess and lunch to survey as many people as possible.
https://twitter.com/plemmonsa/status/931192938805252096
The students were so professional and I loved standing back and watching them work. It truly was their project and they were taking it very seriously.
In just one day, we have already surveyed 216 students. We will continue this process and then take the next step of looking at the results. I love how we can check along the way to see which grades need to be surveyed more so that we have a somewhat even distribution of voices.
Be on the lookout for our next steps. We are off to a great start.
Expect the Miraculous 
How do you decide how much of your budget to allocate to your student book budget team? Do you do a percentage? Or allocate a certain amount from a grant to them?
This project sounds like an amazing way to further engage kids in the library! I love it!
Some years I write a grant that funds the project. The past couple of years, I’ve used the profit from our book fair as the student budget. It’s a great way to give back to the students and families since they are the ones who shop at the fair.