LIBRARY REFURBISHMENTS:
DAHL ELEMENTARY
OCTOBER 2023

Captain Jason M. Dahl Elementary is a school located in Southeast San Jose serving children in grades K-6. Dahl first opened in 1955 under the name of Hillsdale, but was renamed in 2002 after former student, Captain Jason M. Dahl who was the United Airlines pilot of Flight #93 on September 11, 2001. The school places an emphasis on positive character traits such as honesty, respect and responsibility in honor of Captain Dahl’s legacy.

The student population at Dahl is similar to all the schools we work with: a vast majority of the students are considered to be socioeconomically disadvantaged by federal guidelines and based on the cost of living in the Bay Area all of the students are living in very low-income households that do not have extra money to supply their children with many (if any) books, and the public library is not always easy for these children to access, leaving the school library as the primary place for these children to obtain  books to read. Unfortunately the library at Dahl was overflowing with outdated and tattered books. At first glance one might have thought that they had plenty of good books, but upon closer inspection one could see that the books were primarily over twenty years old (average date of publication was 1999), tattered and not very representative of the mostly Latinx and Vietnamese population at the school.

We worked with the Library Media Assistant (LMA) and principal closely to remove over 3000 outdated and damaged books, rearrange bookshelves, create a brand new graphic novel section, improve the flow of the library, and provide new signage to help direct the students to the different sections of books. On Saturday October 14, 2023 we worked alongside 60+ volunteers to prepare the brand new books for the library and paint colorful murals inside and outside the library to make it a brighter and comfortable place to read. In all, we donated nearly 1200 brand new books to the library, donated 1000 gently used books to the classrooms, painted four large murals inside and outside the library, and provided lunch to the 60+ volunteers.