Collection Development, Extended Hours (ASP), HRRB, Community

At the end of this week I spent a great deal of time using reports to check on my collection and completing orders that would help to get some updated fiction in the hands of our patrons. The new fiction is what brings them in. Kids have been asking me for weeks, "When are we going to get some newbooks?" I'm hoping these orders will be here in a few weeks!

The Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl is coming up next week. We've decided to hold the competition in two parts. Round 1 during the school day and round 2 at our Family Literacy Night. This has really drawn the students to the GA Book Award Nominees and promoted literacy.

I also got in touch with Mary Jean Hartel to speak with our 6th graders about using the Athens Regional Library. While she is here she will also do some storytelling!

The afterschool media center is going AWESOME! I am so excited about the number of students we see each afternoon. I am currently working on an author visit from Tim Green as part of the extended hours After-School Media Center's 21st Century Grant Program. I spoke again with his administrative assistant today, so we'll see. Right now, the cost is $5000; hopefully, we will be able to split it between schools and the 21st Century folks... We'll see! :)

Reading Rocks, meetings, graduate first, adopt-a-class

Today is Tuesday, my no classes to teach in the MC today, day..... However, the irony is that there are actually 2 classes (one 7th and one 8th) in the media center all day today AND they are both working on research projects that I have helped with resources on.... 7th grade Harlem Renissance and the 8th grade is an Energy Conservation project. Both classes worked on their own with their teachers taking the lead. I was in and out of the MC and my office most of the day working on various projects and attending meetings.

A large portion of the day, after broadcast and helping out a few of our adopt-a-class community members this morning, was spent planning for our Family Literacy Night which is coming up as part of our fall book fair. The theme will be Reading Rocks.... I hope to have our final HRRB competition that night and make a big deal of it. Also, I sent out requests for teachers to help and to the public library's youth services librarian to come and talk with students during the school day as well as during our family night.

Today, I went as part of the admin team to sit in on the 7th grade team meeting. I have been assigned to that grade, so each Tuesday, I will sit in on their meeting.

I have a caseload of kids for the Graduate First program. I am to meet with these kids once a week and discuss various topics related to school work, graduation, etc. I believe this is part of a grant CCSD received several years back. I checked in on a couple of them last week when they were assigned to me. Today I met with one student and helped her find and work with a peer tutor for math.

energy, harlem, admin, etc.

Today's events as a list...

1. Contest Winners--circulation stats report, poster contest winners
2. Broadcast
3. Admin meeting--have to go to observe ELT classes the next 3 days
4. Teach 6th grade--looking for non-fiction, using destiny quest
Items listed below this line were done in between teaching the 6th grade classes all day
5. Make Pathfinder for Energy Conservation Brochure lesson...webpath express, delicious, website, etc.
6. pull together pathfinder for Destiny Webpath Express on Harlem Renissance
7. Teach LID lesson on using destiny quest and web path express
8. Middle School Media Specialist Meeting--discuss Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl school, district and regional competitions

Speaking Engagment, Movie Tickets, and Kroger; Oh my!

Today I spoke with Mary Ann Fitzgerald's EDIT 6300, Administration of Media Programs class at UGA Gwinnett. This was my first time speaking with media specialists outside of my district about my GA Exemplary Application or my program in general. I was so nervous. I hope I helped them at least a little bit. I tried to tell them about the importance of being a PR person for your program, the application process, crazy middle schoolers, my average day, and the idea of balance; hopefully that's what actually came out of my mouth. I'm a nervous talker, so no telling what I said. :) I guess if I plan to present at a conference I'd better work on this skill.

After that, I stopped by the movie theater to see if they would donate tickets for my Read Poster Contest to promote Teen Read Week. I tend to come up with ideas, implement them, and then decide how I'm going to go about getting the prizes. :) At COMO last week and on the GLMA Blog Holly Frilot told us about her contests for Teen Read Week (month for her) and I decided to "borrow" them all. We had a great time last week AND best of all I got 6 free movie tickets and a FREE $25 gift card for Jittery Joe's (thanks to the sweet little girl whose father owns Jittery Joes and was on my winning HRRB team last year) for the book checkout contest! I can't wait to tell the kids who won on Monday during broadcast.

The movie theater guy asked me to bring over an official request on letterhead and he'd have the tickets for me. So, luckily, my school is right across the street so I went over, plugged in the laptop cart I forgot to plug in yesterday, and cranked out a letter for Beechwood Cinema. While I was at it, I wrote a letter requesting food donations from Kroger for the upcoming Family Literacy Night (recently renamed Reading Rocks Family Night) on November 16th. They usually donate if you give them 30 days notice, we'll see if 24 days will do! :)

Georgia Exemplary Library Media Application and TOTY 2010

As my applied project for my Ed.S. at UGA I am working on another Georgia Exemplary Library Media Application. Last year, as I worked on our CMS Media Center Program Development Plan, I decided I would use the Georgia Exemplary Library Rubric as a guiding document for the program's goals. With this end in mind, our program was eventually nominated several times over for the Georgia Exemplary Library Media Program in the 2009-10 school year. I then spent a month or more gathering data and working with my co-writer, friend, and our school art teacher, Laura Lee Johnson to create and edit and re-edit and re-edit the 6 page (single spaced) application.

That spring I was named the CMS Teacher of the Year and eventually, Laura Lee and I finished the application and submitted it. During the summer I recieved an email from Judy Serritella congratulating me that the Clarke Middle School Media Program was named an Exceptional Library Media Program by the Georgia Department of Education. I was very excited and honored. There are 3 programs named at the middle level for Georgia Exemplary and 5 named Georgia Exceptional. I was so proud that our program was considered one of the top 8 in the state. So for me I felt the only natural next step would be to resubmit and try for the Exemplary again.

The purpose of this blog is to follow my media program in order to document the daily happenings and to guide my progress toward the Georgia Exemplary Library Media Program application for the 2010-11 school year. Hope you enjoy the journey! :)