Capitol News

The Haslett Public Schools Board welcomed students and teachers from Murphy Elementary School at their meeting on May 22 to discuss a book program.

The program, spearheaded by Read to Them, goes under the moniker One School, One Book, and provides students with a book they can read at home with family or fellow classmates, according to a video of the meeting published on the board’s YouTube page.

Jessica Harden, the Multi-Tiered System of Supports coach at Murphy Elementary, introduced some students who spoke about the program which is funded by the Foundation for Haslett Schools. The foundation provides every student with a book for free.

Harden introduced the book the staff chose, “Just Right Jillian” by Nicole Collier.

“This year, Murphy wanted to bring back One School, One Book, which we've done in previous school years, but we haven't had a chance to do it the last few years,” Harden said. "A team of our Murphy staff and I read a lot of books and decided to go with ‘Just Right Jillian.’”

The story consists of a fifth-grade student who wants to keep a promise she made to her grandmother, who passed away about a year ago, according to comments made during the meeting. To do that, she must overcome her shyness to participate in an academic competition at school. The story also features the raising and hatching of chicks, something students at Murphy Elementary also latched on to.

“So, one reason why we chose this book is that we have a big initiative and (have) a school district of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Harden said. “And this checked kind of a lot of boxes for us. We had not previously selected a book that was culturally relevant for African American students and our population, and it also has a very strong social-emotional learning component, which is another one of our main focuses at Murphy as well as the district.”

The school celebrated the completion of the book with several activities including an egg hatching event. Fourth grader Porter Hatch, son of the principal, talked about how the students watched the birds hatch and visited them at the library after.

Macy Pumphrey, a third grader, talked about how they named the 11 chicks, which are now dubbed Oreo, Banana, Golden Nugget, Brownie, Mr. Hatched, Flame, Kevin Jr., Peep, Shadow, Nutella, and Bubbles, all of which were chosen by a school vote.

The school finished the program with a Mind Bender trivia competition, similar to one in the book, in each of their classrooms.

The board members were moved by the presentation and glad to hear that the initiative will return next year with a new book, according to the video.