Already, NAZA has helped students increase their math and science scores and improve their school attendance and behavior records. However, in a town where 60 percent of third to eighth graders still read below grade level, we have a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to do more. This challenge-opportunity is to figure out how NAZA and NPL, now living in the same “house,” will stay nimble and non-bureaucratic while increasing NAZA students’ access to books, NPL, and its librarians to foster a culture of reading and writing.

NAZA and NPL in the past year have made NPL’s nationally recognized program, Limitless Libraries, available to all after-school sites that belong to the NAZA network, increasing students’ access to books, book clubs in a bag, and digital resources through the Limitless Libraries catalog and delivery system. NAZA and NPL have jointly hired a Literacy Coach, who offers literacy training and coaching for NAZA academic instructors. She has established a Reading Mentors pilot program that pairs branch librarians with a NAZA site.

As NAZA expands to reach an additional 10,000 children over the next 5 years, we will nurture their love and talent for reading, which will ultimately translate into improved grades in English and Language Arts. Near-term markers of the NAZA-NPL partnership include establishing an annual system-wide NAZA writing contest. The Library also recently started bringing NPL’s teen staff, Totally Awesome Teens Advocating for Libraries, to NAZA sites. Much more is in store, including Studio NPL, the Library's mobile MakerSpace and production units. This new partnership will serve as a model for other afterschool and public library systems on how to rapidly combine resources in dynamic, focused, innovative ways.