Youth Services Librarian San Diego Public Library, Mission Valley Branch
Learn how to serve your local homeschooling families with tools, services, and programs. Many public libraries are familiar with providing outreach to public brick-and-mortar schools, but homeschoolers may be an overlooked demographic. This poster will describe how the pandemic impacted homeschooling in our local area, and how those community needs led to our Homeschool Resource Center’s inception. We'll discuss the targeted materials that we purchased for the center; collaborations made between the library and local homeschooling groups; the programs we generated for this population; and the lessons we learned in creating a unique center not previously found in San Diego. Our Homeschool Resource Center was built with funds from a 2022-2023 LSTA grant. Mission Valley Library, one of the 36 San Diego Public Library locations, is a centrally located branch that has always been a destination for homeschoolers and now strives to support this demographic with targeted resources, collaborations, and advocacy.