Board budgeted additional funds to purchase library books.

More money from the school district means better book selection and the addition of Spanish libraries in Carlsbad schools.

The district budgeted a total of $146,260 for new library books this year, which comes to approximately one new book per student in the district, a significant increase from previous years, when each principal determined their own library budget.

"Last year when building the budget, the librarians came forward. They had put together a proposal requesting additional funding to help expand their library," said Laura Garcia, director of finance for Carlsbad Municipal Schools.

Garcia said a lot of the libaries didn't have the books kids needed, and wanted to expand resources for bilingual students.

"School libraries are proving over and over again to be absolutely essential in our students' lives," said Lorie Mitchell, chairman of the librarian's association for the Carlsbad Municipal School system, while giving an update to the Board of Education on Monday. "It increases reading and math abilities. If these children can't read, they can't do math either."

The funding included $10,000 for e-books and $22,500 for Spanish books.

"At the high school, my budget increased from $3,000 to $34,000 this year," Mitchell said to the school board. "With $4,000 of that being dedicated to our English language learners, which has become a huge population increase in our little city."

Other schools in the area primarily use the Gomez and Gomez Dual Language Enrichment model. Austin ISD has 16 elementary schools with dual language programs, Round Rock ISD has 12, Pflugerville ISD has three, Hays CISD has two, Hutto ISD has two and Leander ISD launched its first at Reed Elementary this year.

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