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Hello! I'm Mina, the school librarian. As a campus librarian, I serve all five high schools that share the building. This is only my second year as a librarian, but prior to this, I have been teaching French and ESL for 20 years. I am very happy to remain in the public schools as a librarian as the best part of the job is working with students. We have a lot of avid readers at Seward Park Campus, and a lot of students who simply love being in the library as well. If you'd like to come and visit our space, please do so! We're located on the 4th floor.
Every year, each school on our campus is given a certain allocation to dedicate towards the purchase of new books for our library. We are very lucky that all of the principals in our building believe in this, and also devote all of this funding towards the library. This year, we were able to purchase over 700 new titles with a book budget totaling just over $11,000.
Hua Hsu Book Launch
C Pam Zhang Book Launch
Thanks to a partnership with New Design High School, Hip Hop Reeducation, and the Astor Foundation, we now have a state-of-the-art music and podcast recording studio. Thanks to a collaboration with Lower Manhattan Arts Academy, we have also been able to hire a part-time studio tech to help students with all of their sound projects. Students can reserve time at: https://www.sewardparkcampuslibrary.org/studio.
Lambda Literary
We won a Lambda Literary writer-in-residence grant which allows 12 students to work on a piece with a published LGBTQIA+ writer which will be published in their annual teen journal. Read more about the program here: https://lambdaliterary.org/lgbtq-writers-in-schools/
The Moth
We are hoping to host a Moth Residency which will be an 8-week storytelling program which concludes in a story slam. We're hoping to recruit students from all five schools to make this a true campus-wide initiative. Read more about the program here: https://themoth.org/education/students
City Lore
City Lore is a special organization located right here in the Lower East Side, and they are looking to host two 12-week residencies with schools centered on oral, dance, and music traditions. Please get in touch if your child might be interested in one of the two programs they are offering!
Seward Park Campus Library is a campus library serving the following five NYC public high schools: Essex Street Academy, The High School for Dual Language and Asian Studies, Lower Manhattan Arts Academy, New Design High School, and The Urban Assembly Academy of Government and Law.
Mina Leazer is a newly-minted librarian thanks to the Teacher 2 Librarian program. Prior to this, she was a twenty-year veteran teacher of English as a Second Language and French. As the new librarian, she is excited about redefining what a library can be in the 21st century as well as ensuring equitable access for all NYC students.