The Hancock Public Schools Board of Education had a sparse audience to their October assembly, in stark contrast to their standing-room-only August meeting. The minutes were passed, the discussion and updates for different projects of the Hancock Public School were presented. Finally, came the time for visitor comments.

There was silence.

Following the principal reports, the approval for the contract with the Portage Lake District Library (PLDL) was then put to a vote. It was recommended by Superintendent Steven Patchin, moved by Board Secretary Michael Lancour and seconded by Trustee Rod Paavlova.

Before it was voted on, information was put forth by Patchin to distinguish it from the previous contract.

“The big thing is the potential membership fee,” he said. “We talked about serving the tax paying community, and it was brought up we were interested in those outside our tax paying community, but there should be a fee just like Portage Lake District Library has on the other side… it came out to a cost of round about $24 per [card].”

This means if a household wants to utilize the Hancock Public School’s library but lives outside the tax paying community that has full access, the household can pay $24 to purchase a library card to check out items.

PLDL Director Katrina Linde-Moriarty explained that some people may wish to buy multiple cards because of the checkout limit. The PLDL circulation policy states 25 items can be checked out on one card.

After the extra information was presented, the partnership was put to a vote. The motion passed unanimously.

The PLDL and Hancock Public Schools will continue their contract until Oct. 31, 2023.

Linde-Moriarty inherited this collaboration after it was created after seeing “that PLDL could help… [and] previously, due to funding structures, it wasn’t feasible to have a librarian in that role or to staff the library at all. It was teacher and volunteer run, so we had the skill set on hand at PLDL to help, and I think we have our work cut out for us moving forward to see [what the] next step in the process would be.”

The library partnership began with a three-year contract with the school that started in Nov. 2018, but was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the partnership, the library was run by teachers and volunteers.

“They only had the plan for it to be a stepping-stone to see if it was possible to either expand the district or to show people within the Hancock School District what a well-staffed library could be and how big of a resource it could be, not only for the students but for all of the residents,” said Linde-Moriarty, who started as PLDL’s director earlier this year.

This vote on the contract is the second amendment made to the agreement to extend the partnership.

In response to being asked about the dissent that was present at the last meeting, Linde-Moriarty said, “I think a better way to talk about [it] would be the misinformation around the situation… what is interesting is there is less than a dozen public school libraries in Michigan. They are mostly in the UP, and mostly in the peninsula, so we are very unique.”

They said the contract the council had just voted on was unique in the state, so there were no models to follow and “a lot of new ground to cover in what that partnership looks like.”

How communication with community stakeholders is handled is one of those things.

“I thought we were doing a pretty decent job about being transparent about the efforts that we were making in administering the library, and then we got different feedback,” Linde-Moriarty said. “So we took in that feedback and analyzed it and worked together with the school district to find solutions to move forward, and really try to recontextualize what our focus is for the future, but we still don’t have the answers, and that’s what I’m looking forward to exploring.”

Find more information on the Hancock school Public Library programs and more here.