Nicole Domagala

Domagala’s innovative teaching idea, “Give Out Books Part 2,” consists of third graders applying real-life money and leadership skills through running a school store within Lake Superior Elementary School. Part of the profits from the school store will be used to support school-wide community activities. For example, mentors and staff will work together with students to build book mailboxes to put in their rural community. The other part of the profits would go to buy books that will be brought to the local neighborhoods by the Lake Superior staff once a month in the summer for students to gather, read, exchange books and build positive relationships within the community. According to Domagala, putting books into the hands of children in the summer can be a challenge because many of the school families do not use the public city library and the school library is not open. She believes giving out books in the summer and having book mailboxes in the community will help meet that literacy challenge.