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Mark Ray asserts that principals and librarians have a lot more in common than you might think—and he should know. After 20 years as a teacher librarian, the 2012 Washington Teacher of the Year has become a district IT administrator. From his new perch, he shares insights into the the pivotal alliance possible between two key solo players in the school: librarian and principal.
The wonderful teacher librarians of the Washington Library Media Association (WLMA) recently released the five-minute video, Teacher Librarians at the Heart of Student Learning. The video, partially funded by Mackin, is designed to present school libraries and teacher librarians as a vital resource for student learning and to highlight the essential role teacher librarians play [...]
How will schools pay for new CC resources, including digital? One approach is to look for existing funds within your school and district that can be redirected so that your library can purchase CC resources for the classroom. But that requires that libraries market their expertise in resource selection and collection development so that your value is obvious to others, says Christopher Harris.
“I love the library, and I firmly believe in it,” says Mark Ray, a former teacher librarian and Washington’s 2011 Teacher of the Year. “But what I also think is that we can redefine perceptions on the part of administrators and decision makers by not necessarily wearing the library on our sleeves.”
Access to a full-time school librarian increases test scores, closes the achievement gap, and improves writing skills, according to a new study of Pennsylvania public schools announced at the start of SLJ’s Leadership Summit.
Parents in Washington, DC, are taking to the streets, advocating for more funding for their school libraries and librarians. The Capitol Hill Public Schools Parent Organization (CHPSPO) has spent the past seven months pushing for Washington, DC, to open its coffers to school libraries to replenish shelves, upgrade library spaces and hire more librarians for K–12 students.
Principals value their librarians. They also want them to be more visible leaders.
Those are just two of the interesting findings from a recent survey of 102 media specialists and 67 principals. In fact, 90 percent of the administrators that we surveyed think we have a positive impact in schools—and a large number also feel that our jobs are important. That’s great news, considering only 65 percent of librarians in the study thought their bosses would recognize the valuable role we play.
Thursday, March 29, 2012, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM ET Featuring informative presentations from Dr. Lesley Farmer – professor, author and international school library advocate and extraordinaire, and Sara Kelly Johns – former AASL president, advocacy expert and author of the all new SLJ Blog Make Some Noise!
There is a 2012 Teacher of the Year in Kentucky who “gets it.” And, she expresses well what students need to do to be successful meeting the Common Core standards, tying them closely to what it is that school librarians do. She does so in an article that can be sent to every superintendent, shared [...]
“Big ALA” will be focused on school librarians even more after the 2012 Annual Conference recently held in Anaheim. We need it. So many school librarians want to join AASL or other divisions without paying dues that include the parent organization, “Big ALA.” I personally joined ALA and AASL as a new school librarian because [...]
Teachers drift in and out of my office all day for the $.25 freshly ground coffee, “real” and decaffeinated. I sometimes sit at my desk with a pile of new materials, entering them into my automated catalog. Suddenly it hits me. We talk about school and life, give each other advice, plan collaborative projects (the [...]
I am on my first train to get from Albany, NY to Washington, DC on a grey, chilly Sunday morning as part of the New York Library Association (NYLA)’s delegation. We will participate in the American Library Association’s National Library Legislative Day (NLLD) on Tuesday, April 24th. I am fairly sure I will be the [...]
Can we have business as usual on a Titanic? That’s a question that bothered Becky Russell, the School Library/21st Century Skills Content Specialist at the Colorado Department of Education’s Library Development Office, about the diminishing number of school library positions in her state. After reading Doug Johnson’s blog post about the new Colorado Association of [...]
If you have not sat down yet with your downloaded copy of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) with a highlighter in your hand, it’s time. And if you have, it’s time to read it again and for all of us to change our vocabulary. School librarians teach Common Core skills. Right now, schools are [...]
So many school librarians around the country are doing excellent and exciting work in their libraries without anyone but the students they impact knowing about it. Visibility is one of the important parts of a deliberate promotion and marketing campaign that every school librarian needs. Below is a guest post by a school librarian, Rebecca [...]
What?!?! President Obama’s budget threw the Improving Literacy through School Libraries funds into one big literacy pot? It was JUST funded by Congress after two years of zero funding and now our chances of competing with the five other literacy programs get lower and lower. There is so much to be done! Time to throw [...]
What is the local newspaper article headline for the event that will happen in your library in the next 30 days? “School Library Catches Students Reading” or “New Nooks Ready To Circulate in the School Library” may be ours. March 6th there is a school board meeting in my school district at which the budget [...]
“You have to make choices sometimes, and the importance of librarians is a bit less than it used to be,” said Ze’ev Wurman, a Silicon Valley executive who participated in the development of California education standards and served as a policy adviser for the U.S. Department of Education. “In the elementary grades especially, librarians are essentially teacher’s aides, doing a variety of things that have little to do with books or literacy, per se.”
