Urban Libraries

The Urban Libraries Council, in partnership with the National Summer Learning Association and the National Recreation and Park Association, will enhance and scale field adoption of middle school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs to advance equity-focused models for summer learning. This is the second phase of a project to target hard-to-reach middle school youth with essential STEM and leadership opportunities and will focus on building resources for libraries around middle school youth engagement, equity and access, summer learning, and building partnerships. Activities include creating a peer learning cohort to pilot summer learning models; distilling models, programs, partnership frameworks, and lessons learned from the pilots into a learning series and action workbook; launching a middle school and summer equity learning challenge for libraries to pilot models using the resources; creating a summer equity assessment; and disseminating resources nationally. This initiative will elevate the role of libraries as education leaders by scaling summer learning programs and partnerships so that (1) more youth can positively engage with STEM during the critical tween years; (2) local government leaders, schools, and summer learning providers better understand how public libraries can strengthen the education ecosystem; and (3) libraries build their capacity to deliver quality STEM and summer learning opportunities.