Photo courtesy of Mid-Prairie School District.

Set foot inside the Mid-Prairie High School Library and you’ll think you’ve been transported to a college campus.

The library was updated over the summer with new flooring and new furniture, as part of the coffee shop renovation project for which the school district received a $95,188 Washington County Riverboat Foundation grant last December. Learning Design Coach Glenda Seward has played a major role in this project, and so far the library has been used to facilitate group discussions for classes, and has had staff and faculty racing to grab their favorite seats at meetings, “So different classes have used the space in different ways, but it’s a comfortable space for student discussions. Before school we always have a number of groups of students just coming in and sitting, and that used to happen in the cafeteria and now they’re coming into the library. We’re anxious to see if the number of library books being checked out increases because they’re here, they see books, they hopefully will continue to read more.”

The coffee shop and checkout area is still under construction. Seward hopes to have that work completed and special education students trained to work in the library by January 2019. The objective behind this project is to give special education students the opportunity to gain work experience and skills by serving coffee and snack items and assisting with other library functions, an opportunity not always offered outside of school.