Lansing Sun

Students and teachers from Murphy Elementary School were on hand at a recent Haslett Public Schools board meeting to discuss a book program.

The program is by Read to Them and goes under the name "One School, One Book" and supplies students with a copy of a chosen book to read that students can read at home with their family or fellow classmates.

Jessica Harden, the Multi-tiered System of Supports (MTSS) coach at Murphy Elementary, introduced some of the students who came along to talk about the program.

Harden said she was excited to introduce the book that they chose, “Just Right Jillian” by Nicole Collier, and announce that the initiative was funded by money from the Foundation for Haslett Schools. The foundation provided every student with a copy of the book at no cost.

“This year, Murphy wanted to bring back One School, One Book, which we've done in previous school years, but we haven't had a chance to do it the last few years,” said Harden. "A team of our Murphy staff and I read a lot of books and decided to go with ‘Just Right Jillian.’”

The story consists of a fifth-grade student who wants to keep a promise she made to her grandmother, who passed away about a year earlier. To do that, she has to overcome her own shyness to participate in an academic competition at school. The story also features the elementary school tradition of raising and hatching chicks, something students at Murphy Elementary also latched on to.

“So, one reason why we chose this book is that we have a big initiative and (have) a school district of diversity, equity and inclusion. And this checked kind of a lot of boxes for us. We had not previously selected a book that was culturally relevant for African-American students and our population, and it also has a very strong social emotional learning component, which is another one of our main focuses at Murphy as well as the district,” Harden explained.

The school celebrated the completion of the book with several activities, starting with a schoolwide egg-hatching event. Fourth-grader Porter Hatch, son of the principal, talked about how students watched the chicks hatch on the camera and visited them at the library after they hatched. 

Macy Pumphrey, a third grader, talked about how the students named the 11 chicks, which are now dubbed Oreo, Banana, Golden Nugget, Brownie, Mr. Hatched, Flame, Kevin Jr., Peep, Shadow, Nutella and Bubbles, all of which were chosen by a school vote.

The school finished off the program with a mind bender trivia competition, just like in the book, in each of their classrooms.

The board members were moved by the presentation, saying they were glad to hear that the initiative will be brought back next year with a new book.