Ever since Harvard’s public library moved from Fairbank Street to its new, larger building on Pond Road in 2007, it has attracted a significant after-school crowd.
On the last Thursday in February, for instance, 101 students visited the library, according to sign-in sheets maintained by library staff. Among the unaccompanied students, there were 71 middle schoolers (with a majority of sixth-graders), 24 high school students, and 6 elementary school students. And throughout the school year, the student count has averaged 85 per day.
Library Director Mary Wilson says she is glad to have the students and is pleased with the book clubs, movies, and craft sessions (which include snacks) developed by reference librarian Lisa Gagnon and other staff to engage them. A recently hired library aide, whose salary is funded by the Library Trust, patrols the building during after-school hours. Quiet areas are clearly labeled, and parents and children are asked to read and sign a “Code of Conduct” and “Children at the Library” policy.
“We want them here at the library. Good things can happen even if it’s loud and bubbly. But the numbers are sometimes so high it is difficult to help all patrons get what they want to out of the library,” Wilson said, noting that some adults “won’t come to the library between 2 and 5 pm.”
Wilson said that she and the Library Board of Trustees hope to work with the school and town committees to “perhaps re-direct the more energetic” youngsters who enter and exit the library freely, alternating library time with outdoor romping.
Library trustee Pete Jackson says some of the outdoor antics he has witnessed should be a cause for concern, especially for parents. “Kids are under confined rules all day at school, in a supervised environment. After that, they want to be free, especially the younger kids,” he said this week. “I don’t think all parents understand that it’s not a monitored after-school program, but a public space where the kids run in and out.”
In his role as a trustee, Jackson volunteers his time to maintain many of the systems in the library, and he has witnessed activity that worries him. He has encountered kids climbing on the gas meter to peer into the second floor reading room; hanging off the copper gutter near the street-front porch; doing chin-ups on the book-drop, which has been broken and repaired twice; climbing on and eventually exposing the wires on a covered, outdoor electrical outlet; and climbing trees.
“The tree-climbing is phenomenal,” said Wilson, noting that 50-foot climbs are not unusual. (A reporter witnessed two tree-climbing episodes during two days of observation, one climber up at least 30 feet). She works with parents to curb climbing habits, but says it’s impossible to survey the whole campus.
“We do our best but the outside is not a supervised area. I think the kids need to have more opportunities to have fun, especially the sixth graders,” Wilson said.
Once, Wilson said, a patron entered the lobby to report that kids were standing in the windows near the porch, posing in the style of the statues at St. Paul’s Cathedral. “I couldn’t have seen that from my windows,” she said.
After-school opportunities for middle schoolers are limited. Sixth-graders are not eligible for school sports.
“The everyday commitment is too much for them, and it’s not fair to place them in competition with much bigger, older kids,” said Bromfield Associate Principal Scott Hoffman. “There are H[arvard] A[thletic] A[ssociation] sports for them, but those typically aren’t right after school,” he said. The school does not offer intramural sports, though Hoffman noted that special after-school athletic programs are offered periodically through Community Education. The Minnow Cup, an after-school program for middle schoolers at Bromfield, has proved less popular than hoped and will be discontinued at the end of this school year. School clubs usually meet weekly.
Both Hoffman and Wilson described instances of teamwork between school and library that bode well for the future. The Minnow Cup, though not a smashing success, was developed partly in response to the library’s request to provide a bona fide after-school program for middle school students. The Debate Club meets in the library’s third-floor Volunteers Hall, and several classes visit the library as part of their coursework. When some sports teams began suiting up in the library, the staff appealed to Bromfield’s athletic director and coaches, who halted the practice. “We’re all one campus,” said Hoffman.
Director Wilson hopes that more activities like the Wednesday Ski Club (which welcomes sixth-graders) could be introduced. On Ski Club days, the library hosted fewer restless students, especially on early-release Wednesdays, Wilson said. For example, library sign-in sheets show 38 students at the library on a Wednesday during ski season, compared to 125 students on a Wednesday in September.
Developing alternatives for middle school students who need to play, snack, and socialize after school, however, is a complicated endeavor. “Discussions between the trustees and the schools have been taking place off and on for the past 10 years,” said Jackson.
An accident waiting to happen
In the meantime, library trustee Gail Coolidge is focused on a problem that is “very serious,” but lends itself to an uncomplicated solution. Last Tuesday, at 2:25 p.m., Coolidge stood at a library window pointing to a rapidly evolving traffic mess behind The Bromfield School. Crowds of kids flowed toward the student parking lot and library. Cars waited at the library entrance to pick up students, exiting both left and right into the student lot. From Pond Road, cars joined the Bromfield pickup line. All the while, students could be seen backing out of their parking spaces.
“We need a sidewalk,” said Coolidge.
This year’s Town Meeting will give sidewalk proponents a chance to have their say. Keith Cheveralls, a member of both the School Committee, and the Capital Planning and Investment Committee, confirmed that one of this year’s warrant articles will ask voters to decide whether to re-pave the rear parking lot and install a sidewalk.
The vote cannot come soon enough for Coolidge. “This is clearly an accident waiting to happen,” she said.
Reflecting on outdoor high jinks near the library, Jackson sounded a similar note. “Something is going to happen one of these days,” he said. “Do we want to be asking ourselves, ‘Could this have been avoided?'”
