CHS has always been a small school with a small library, but a recent addition of books by Indigenous authors is expanding the diversity of literature available to students. The books span a wide range of genres, from sci-fi to non-fiction. The new novels arrived in late 2025 and were only a part of a grant awarded to Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) from the Michigan Department of Education (MDE).
Joslyn Hunscher-Young writes social studies curriculums for AAPS, in addition to teaching at CHS. She worked with her colleague Jared Aumen, the secondary Social Studies Department Chair for the district, to draft an application for the grant in early 2024. Aumen heard about the 2023-2024 Teaching Diverse Histories Grant through MDE. The grant allotted $6,000,000 to award to school districts that submitted applications that met requirements and funded projects that scored the highest first.
Hunscher-Young and Aumen drafted the initial application in early 2024. It was then refined with the help of Joanna Johnson, AAPS’s Federal and State Grant Coordinator. The funds from the grant are being used to inform students and staff more fully about Michigan’s Indigenous history, governments and culture. A portion of the grant was used to purchase books written by Indigenous authors for all of the elementary, middle and high school libraries in AAPS, with $15,000 allocated to each level of education.
Some of the 200 titles brought to CHS include Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley, There There by Tommy Orange, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Oritz, The Modern Navajo Kitchen by Alana Yazzie and Project 562 by Matika Wilbur. The books were chosen by librarians and social studies teachers across the district in the spring of 2025, and the list was finalized by Hunscher-Young and Aumen. The novels were bought over the summer and arrived at CHS in late 2025. Community High School librarian Jeri Schnieder estimates that they will all be processed and added to Community’s library by the end of January.
In addition to the books received in late 2025, the grant allowed for professional development for teachers from the summer of 2024 to the spring of 2025 and community events that were open to the public during the spring of 2025. The development program for staff included trips to Harbor Springs to visit the site of an Indigenous boarding school, a visit to the River Raisin National Battlefield Park and a one-day educational summit on Aug. 20, 2025. The event featured Boulley and Eric Hemenway, the Director of Repatriation, Archives and Records for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. The summit and previous events aimed to increase and strengthen staff members’ knowledge about various Indigenous topics and to explore ways to incorporate Indigenous concepts into classrooms in a meaningful way.
AAPS funds school libraries based on the school’s number of students. Community, having fewer students than comprehensive high schools in the district, has less money to purchase new books for the library, leading to a smaller collection of books. This fact, alongside the reality that the publishing industry lacks Indigenous representation, had made it hard to include many Indigenous authors into Community’s collection. With the MDE grant, CHS’s library has expanded the amount and diversity of literature provided to students.
To learn more about what AAPS has done with the grant from MDE, visit this AAPS website created by Hunscher-Young.
