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Last spring the children’s book community lost several beloved authors and illustrators, including the hugely talented Leo Dillon, Jean Craighead George, Ellen Levine, and Maurice Sendak. In honor of their memory and their many accomplishments, TeachingBooks.net is offering video and audio recordings of these creative artists whose work enriched the lives of so many people.
School librarians across the Atlantic are feeling the squeeze, too. A recent study by the U.K.’s School Library Association shows that budgets there have taken a hit, with 34 percent of media specialists reporting smaller budgets this year compared to 2011. Meanwhile, only 18 percent say they’ve seen an increase since last year.
The Goleta Library in Goleta, CA, part of the Santa Barbara Public Library System, celebrated a Family Place Workshop on June 1. Hunter Tattle explores his artisitic talent at a fingerpainting activity.
Some kids in Michigan are literally fighting for their right to read. The state’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently filed a class-action suit on behalf of eight students in the Highland Park School District who don’t read at grade level.
Seven Title I media centers throughout the district continue to keep their doors open two hours each week, and local kids are welcome to read, check out books, or attend read-alouds. Although it’s not a new concept, it’s the first time Salem-Keizer has kept summer hours—and so far, kids seem to be enjoying it, says Stephen Cox, the district’s library media program specialist.
Richard Hasenyager, the former director for library services at Texas’sNorth East Independent School District, was recently appointed director of library services for New York City’s department of education.
He replaces Barbara Stripling, who left the position at the end of 2011 to become a professor of practice at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies (iSchool). Stripling held the position since 2005.
Talk about lousy timing. The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) began accepting applications last week for the new Innovative Approaches to Literacy Program—at a time when most school librarians are off on their summer breaks.
Arizona’s public schools and libraries must filter all computers that are available to children or risk losing 10 percent of their state funding, according to a new law set to take effect August 1.
Although 46 states and Washington, DC, have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), less than a quarter of the general public knows about the academic standards for K-12 education that are designed to prepare students for college and the workforce, says a recent poll by a nonprofit education reform organization.
District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray on Friday signed a bill that requires public libraries, schools, recreation centers, and other city agencies that work with young people to adopt and implement antibullying policies.
Drafted by the Special Presidential Task Force on School Libraries, the resolution was “formed out of necessity” in response to the ongoing budget cuts and school librarian layoffs, says Sara Kelly Johns (right), the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) Division Councilor and a media specialist at New York’s Lake Placid Middle/High School, who last Friday proposed the resolution at an ALA membership meeting, where it also passed unanimously.
Chicago’s taking the partnership between public and school libraries to the next level—it’s building its first public library as part of a school.
The removal of Patricia Polacco’s picture book about lesbian moms has created a stir after a Utah school district recently pulled the title from general circulation in elementary school libraries.
Robin Levin is in the news again. This time it’s for being the first school librarian to win the Arch Coal Foundation Teacher Achievement Award, which this year recognized 10 teachers in Wyoming for their leadership and contribution to K-12 education.
This is the worst time to be a school librarian and the best time to be one. Our profession is under daily threat of extinction, yet the implementation of the Common Core Standards affords incredible opportunity to make the strongest case for the importance of librarians and libraries in schools. Together we must commit to gaining a deep understanding of these new standards and determine to be at the fore of the Common Core conversations taking place in our buildings. We are uniquely suited for this because the Common Core Standards dovetail elegantly with inquiry, and we know inquiry.
Amy Timberlake’s humorous picture book, The Dirty Cowboy, (Farrar, 2003) is staying off elementary school library shelves in Pennsylvania’s Annville-Cleona school district.
Despite protests by free-speech organizations and an online petition with more than 300 signatures in favor of repealing the ban, the school board last week stuck to its decision that the book was too dirty for young eyes.
The award-winning book tells the tale of a freckle-faced cowboy who decides to take his annual bath in a nearby river and [...]
