Media Coordinator at Speas Elementary Recognized

Samra Childers

 

At the Oct. 23 meeting of the Board of Education, the board recognized Samra Childers, the media coordinator of Speas Elementary School, for winning a $5,000 Laura Bush Literacy Grant.

Speas is one of only 238 schools in the country to receive the award this year, and one of only 10 schools in North Carolina to receive the maximum award offered to “expand, update and diversify . . . library book collections.”

“I am excited and honored to receive this award.” Childers said. “In this age of so many budget cuts to education and library programs, this $5,000 will help us add many much-needed additional resources in several curricular areas, as well as provide exciting new discretionary reading to motivate students to learn and grow as readers.  I am particularly pleased that we will be able to support teachers and students in the Common Core areas where we did not have sufficient current materials, and to add to our multicultural collection.  We are looking forward to receiving our new books.”

Childers earned a bachelor’s degree from Pfeiffer College. She holds master’s degrees in Business Administration as well as Library and Information Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has been an elementary school library media coordinator for 10 years. This is her fourth year at Speas. Childers is married to Joe Childers, the principal at Atkins Academic and Technology High School. They have three children.

Altogether, The Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries awarded $1.13 million in grants for 2012. Partnering this year with the foundation was Target Corp. Through such programs as Take Charge of Education and Target School Library Makeovers, Target donates a significant portion of its giving towards educational causes with a focus on helping students achieve reading proficiency.

The Laura Bush Foundation has awarded more than $9.5 million to schools in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Marshall Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. In addition to these yearly grants, the Foundation has also awarded more than $6.3 million to school libraries in the Gulf Coast region to rebuild their library book collections that were lost or destroyed by hurricanes or storms.

More information about the foundation is available at www.laurabushfoundation.org