West Shore School News is a presentation of West Shore Educational Service District in partnership with Mason County Press and Oceana County Press.
AMBER TOWNSHIP — Students in the construction trades program at Summit Tech Center recently completed a hands-on project benefiting local elementary students, building custom bookshelves for classrooms at Mason County Central’s Scottville Elementary and Walkerville Public Schools’ elementary.
The project supports a classroom library grant initiative through TalentFirst, which has provided funding to expand early literacy resources in area schools. Recent grants were awarded to second grade teachers Becky Alway at Scottville Elementary and Brenda Sommerfeldt at Walkerville Elementary, helping them purchase hundreds of age-appropriate books and classroom materials.
Students in Alway’s second grade classroom celebrated the unveiling of their new classroom library earlier this year, which included a large collection of books aimed at strengthening reading skills and encouraging literacy development.
Brenda Rodriguez and her students unveil the library recently. West Shore ESD photo.
To complement the new books, Summit Tech Center students designed and built bookshelves as part of their coursework, applying real-world construction skills while supporting local classrooms.
Summit Tech Center is a career and technical education program operated by the West Shore Educational Service District. The program serves high school juniors and seniors from Mason, Lake, Oceana and Manistee counties, with nearly 500 students participating in hands-on training programs each year.
For the bookshelf project, students used white pine harvested from West Shore Educational Service District property along the U.S. 10-31 corridor. The wood was processed locally and kiln-dried on site at the construction trades building. The finished shelves were accented with locally sourced maple.
The completed bookshelves were delivered to classrooms this week, where they will be used by second grade students at Scottville Elementary and Walkerville Elementary as part of their growing classroom libraries.
The TalentFirst Adopt-a-Classroom Library program is designed to address early literacy challenges by providing K-3 classrooms with high-quality books and resources. Research shows that access to classroom libraries plays a critical role in helping students become proficient readers by third grade, a key milestone for long-term academic success.
The collaboration highlights the impact of partnerships between education, workforce development and community organizations, while also giving local students the opportunity to apply skilled trades training in a meaningful, real-world setting.
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