WITS Rochelle Lee Teacher Award

The Rochelle Lee Teacher Award is a book grant for Chicago public and charter school teachers to enhance their classroom libraries and develop a love of reading in their students. Teachers complete an online application for an opportunity to receive a $500 grant to purchase books of their choice for their classroom library.

Apply for the Rochelle Lee Teacher AwardThe application period for this year has ended.

Why Classroom Libraries Are Important

Educators agree that schools play an important role in expanding access to books at home, but many teachers have fewer than one hundred and fifty books in their classroom libraries to serve all their students throughout the year—with 31% of teachers having fewer than fifty books.

According to the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), students who have robust classroom libraries are more likely to be frequent readers.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), teachers typically spend between $500 and $750 of their own money on classroom supplies each year, which includes books.

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RLTA Resources: WITS Library Materials

Professional texts available to use in the WITS library (select "professional texts" from drop-down menu). This resource is for RLTA awardees only.
Booksource’s Classroom Organizer is a free, online tool to catalog your classroom library books, create class check-out rosters, manage usage reports, and more. This resource is available for all teachers.

RLTA Resources: WITS Lending Library

The WITS Lending Library contains more than 350 sets of children and young adult books. Titles are available in whole class sets and smaller group sets. Current and former WITS educators may borrow books from our lending library. This resource is for RLTA awardees only.
View the Rochelle Lee Lending Library catalog and availability online via LibraryThing.
WITS Lending Library/LibraryThing reference guide.
Contact Daphne Robinson in advance to borrow books from the lending library for your students. This will ensure that the desired books are available, and that a specific time can be scheduled to pick up the books.

program facilitators

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Daphne Robinson

Community Manager

daphner@witschicago.org
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Sarah Hoppe Knight
Chief Program & Strategy Officer

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