In an unassuming room next to the North Cafeteria at Oak Park and River Forest High School lies the bookstore. While some students only know the bookstore as a place to buy an extra PE uniform or gym lock, it’s far more complex behind the scenes. 

Beyond the storefront is a large back room with perfectly organized shelves full of textbooks and materials used all throughout the school. Anna Wise and Socorro Carrasco, the bookstore clerks, juggle the many responsibilities that come with managing the store and work diligently to serve the school.

The bookstore clerks are in charge of a multitude of tasks important for the day-to-day operations of OPRF. For example, the bookstore orders, packages and delivers supplies and materials to teachers. The materials range from textbooks to art supplies, and are delivered all throughout the building. The bookstore also sells tickets for school events, like prom and homecoming. In addition, the bookstore clerks manage student fees.

Wise has worked at the bookstore since the beginning of this school year. Before coming to OPRF, Wise worked as an assistant at the Harper Community College Library and as researcher at the African American Oral History Archive located in downtown Chicago. Wise has lived in Oak Park for two years and wanted a job that was closer to her home. She also agrees with the fundamental mission of OPRF, that being public education. 

Wise enjoys reading in her free time, so the bookstore was a natural fit. ¨When I was job searching and I saw it was at a bookstore, I thought that was such an easy thing to sell because I am an avid book person myself,” said Wise.

Wise’s favorite thing about the bookstore is the interactions she has with the school community. By helping students, teachers and faculty she builds relationships with all aspects of the school. ¨I have been in a lot of customer service myself, so this works well for me,¨ said Wise.

Carrasco has worked at OPRF for five years, three of them spent in food service and the rest of them at the bookstore. Carrasco came to the OPRF bookstore because reading is a hobby of hers, and she enjoys working with kids. Carassco also teaches Sunday school classes at her local church.

According to Carrasco, the bookstore helps the OPRF community in a variety of ways. “It’s really busy,” she said. “We work with a lot of kids. They want to know what a locker combination is or if they need a PE uniform. Or they lost their Chromebook or backpack. We get all types of students.¨ The bookstore is actually most busy during the summer, when preparing textbooks and materials for students to pick up before the start of the school year. “We are busy the whole year, and people don’t realize that,” said Carrasco.

OPRF English Teacher Allison Myers has a close relationship with the bookstore. “I communicate with the bookstore pretty much weekly depending on what classes I’m teaching that year,” she said. “They are fabulous human beings who are always eager to help. I’m positive that the English department could not survive without them.” 

Delivering ordered books to various classrooms around the school is no easy task, Myers added. “Often they get the books to me so fast that I don’t even have time to send a student down,” she said. “So I would say that they are ‘beasts,’ in a good way. Those books are heavy. Sometimes the boxes have 80-plus books in them.”

It’s clear that the bookstore is an integral part of OPRF. Tasked with delivering classroom materials, selling tickets to events and answering the vast array of questions posed by students and parents, the bookstore is always busy helping the school community.