And so it begins, but with thoughts of the end...

The school year is about to begin, and it will be an interesting one. I have been a teacher librarian for 7 years in practice and after this year I will be taking some time to concentrate on my own research and studies.

I have been enrolled in a Teacher Leadership program since Summer of 2008, and am finishing my second master's this year. My studies have been wonderful, exhilarating, and life changing and I don't want to stop. By definition, I guess this makes me an intrinsically motivated lifelong learner. And yet despite these flow like feelings I am increasingly frustrated (on good days) and downright ambivalent (on bad days) as a result of living two connected but separate academic lives.

In addition to my ongoing research and studies, I crave MOST of the activities and responsibilities inherent in my role as a high school librarian. And while my job and my scholarship are intricately woven together and seamlessly whole at times this is not always the case. The daily battles I fight on behalf of my teachers and students (access, funding, technology integration, and relevant instructional practices) suck the life energy out of my being as if I were Bella and bad educational policy was a vicious coven of nomad vampires. If I am to remain productive, creative, and, well, fun to be around, I can no longer serve two masters.

My year begins with an interesting dilemma that makes me think of Chris Cruncher's novel, Deadline. Ben Wolfe, the protagonist, has a year to live and must decide what projects will fill his remaining days. Unlike Ben, fortunately, I am not dying a physical death nor am I keeping my time limits secret from everyone around me. Like Ben, I need to decide how best to devote my limited resources. I have a lot of thoughts on this matter, but only two rules.

1. I must intrinsically enjoy whatever I devote myself to achieving this year. Why? Because this means whatever I leave as my tangible legacy to the school will be AWESOME!
   
   
2. Everything I do during my contacted time MUST be student centered. Each goal must begin and end with a litmus test of how to best to create optimal learning environments and structure individualized learning opportunities for all of my students, no exceptions. Given it is a school of 3000 teens, well, "enjoyable" isn't exclusively synonymous with "easy."

So, if you had one more year as an employed school librarian, and you knew it, what would you do with your time?

A Letter In Support of Student Achievement

Fellow Parents, Educators and School Leaders,

I have the pleasure of serving on the board of my professional association as the school library representative in Indiana District 4. As part of my appointed responsibilities, I am contacting you regarding a very important issue. The students in your district are at risk of losing one of their most valuable assets in the journey to becoming well educated adults: a strong school library program, and a certified school librarian.

This winter you have been asked to undertake a very difficult and perhaps unprecedented task. You must construct an operational budget for your school district in a time of economic crisis. Though you have been given limited financial and professional resources from our state policy makers, you are expected to finalize a budget without negatively impacting the academic achievement of the children in your schools.

Often, in a time of budget downsizing, leaders decide it is necessary to cut professional and support staff positions. While considering staff cuts, you always try to protect positions that directly interact with students and support their learning. Because many of you are currently in this decision making position or have previously made these decisions, it is vital that you more fully understand the fundamental instructional activities that are the responsibility of your school librarians (media specialists). In an effort to help inform your decision, included in this message is research-based information illustrating how school library programs increase student learning and achievement.

Studies in over 19 states (including Indiana) have found that students tend to perform better on standardized tests in schools with better-staffed, better-stocked, and better-funded school library programs (see - http://bit.ly/yablog1). I am sure you agree that while standardized testing is only one of many ways we should assess student learning, it is the method most valued by state and national policy makers in education. Test results are most often how lawmakers, the media, and the community evaluate the effectiveness of your school. If the quality of your school library program is reduced by cuts, more than likely student tests scores will drop.

Passing tests based on memorized facts is not an adequate predictor of how successful our students will be after leaving high school. Professional educators must look beyond testing and create programs for authentic learning. Because information and ideas are now produced and published at rates never before experienced, it is impossible for any student to understand and remember enough content in core subject areas. In the modern digital age, there is just too much to know! Now that an abundance of facts, figures, and opinions are literally at our fingertips we no longer require rote memorization for efficient problem solving. Instead, our schools must provide effective instruction and meaningful assessment to strengthen students’ critical thinking abilities. To ensure a future of opportunity for our students, we need to teach the skills necessary to find, evaluate, use, and create information using a variety of tools and resources. We are developing minds to deal with a future we cannot predict.

No other staff member in today’s school is more poised to lead and provide this instruction than well supported, certified school librarians. In fact, your school librarians may be the only educators in your district that actively plan curriculum for student and teacher development based on two sets of academic standards: The academic learning standards issued by the state, and the Standards for the 21st Century Learner (see - http://bit.ly/yablog3 ) developed by our professional organization, the American Association for School Librarians.

If you review the framework of the Partnership for the 21st Century Skills you will note that our students require the development of information, media, and technology skills as the foundation for authentic learning (see - http://bit.ly/yablog3). School librarians are trained to simultaneously deliver instruction in information literacy skills along with core content through collaborative planning and teaching with classroom teachers. When a content area teacher and a school librarian collaborate, the student-teacher ratio is cut in half, response to intervention is more timely and personalized to the needs of each student, and the assessment of understanding is more reflective.

While considering cuts of school librarians, library support staff, or library materials funding, you may wonder what children regularly do in the school library under the instruction of a school librarian. Among many other activities, the students:

• Learn and develop a love of reading
• Find stories and information that allow their imagination and creativity to soar
• Discover how to successfully and confidently utilize resources of higher learning
• Understand what it means to be a critical consumer and producer of information in a digital age
• Internalize the importance of ethical and safe behavior in online environments
• Experience how to actively and intelligently participate in a democracy

It is important that your school library programs are well funded and contain an exceptional collection of up-to-date, accurate, and age appropriate print and digital resources that directly support the curriculum. It is more important that a certified school librarian is available to teach learners how to appropriately utilize these resources. The library support staff is vital in helping with the day-to-day business of a library. Without their assistance, a school librarian cannot fully respond to the informational and instructional needs of students or teachers. However, because they have not been professionally trained, educated, and licensed in teaching and library science, these individuals cannot replace a school librarian in providing instruction, selecting materials, and preparing students for the 21st century.

In a recent blog article, Doug Johnson, author and Director of Media and Technology for the Mankato (MN) Public Schools, tells us that “…in times of budget cuts… a school's true values come starkly into focus” (see - http://bit.ly/yablog4 ). As you make final decisions about staffing, I ask you to consider the essential role school librarians play in educating students. In the words of our former First Lady, and fellow librarian, Laura Bush, “School libraries help teachers teach and children learn… Books, information technology, and school librarians who are part of the schools' professional team are basic ingredients for student achievement."


Thank you for taking time to read this message. Please do not hesitate to contact me for additional information.

Maureen Sanders-Brunner
School Librarian
District 4 Representative
Association for Indiana Media Educators
Indiana Library Federation
mdsbrunner@gmail.com

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The above letter was sent via email to over 60 school leaders in Central Indiana. The school districts they represent are considering, or have already, cut funding for school library staff and/or library materials.

I want to thank Carl Harvey II, for helping me by creating the foundation for this letter. Please read his excellent blog at http://www.carl-harvey.com/. As of the date of this blog, Carl is a candidate for President of AASL, our national professional association.

I also want to thank the amazing school librarians who helped to edit this letter and who serve AIME. It is awesome to work with those who are dedicated to helping the most wonderful professionals in the world!

Those who are advocating in support of strong school library and media programs staffed by certified school librarians are encourage to link to or borrow ideas from this post. Also, please visit the AASL Advocacy website for a well stocked advocacy toolbox.

Day 2 1/2 Library Legislative Briefing Day

My brain is a frying egg in an iron skillet.

I need to do a little backtracking and pick up where I left off yesterday to tell the story in its entirety.

John and Corey were up again to discuss Internet and Telecom Issues. Specifically that we need ask for support in simplifying the application process by exempting regular receipts of E-rate from ADA compliance that tie up library funds in unnecessary escrow. Those of us in schools might not have to deal with this directly, but our public library directors can feel the pain. We might also need to get more involved in these discussions in our schools with our IT directors. There were some other issues, but mainly the simplification process is the main issue.

While Yvonne and I were involved in the Internet Telecom briefing, Carol attended a session titled “Stump the Washington Office, Q&A.” Here they reviewed issues that were discussed in the sessions, but more of a open session instead of a panel. If anyone out there was at this session and would like to comment, that would be great.

Our final discussion was about Stimulus money. Here things get a little tricky. The first wave of money was basically distributed to the states and is expected to filter down to individual school districts. As many of us know, this happened very quickly and the actually educational practitioners have yet to see the money in action at their schools. My understanding is that most of this money was allotted to Title 1 programs, and that most secondary schools do not quality for Title 1 status. If you are concerned about this money and the transparency of usage, then please comment. I think that school libraries may need to work together to evaluate where and how this money is being used to strengthen literacy instruction of all kinds throughout the schools. Even if we are not able to be part of the decision making process, I believe it is important for us to be part of the conversation and understand how the money is being used.

The second wave of stimulus money will be in the form of competitive grants. Here the Fed is going to encourage partnerships with schools, governments, higher ED, public libraries and perhaps even private companies. We need to make sure that our legislators know that a big chunk of this money needs to be set aside for library services of all kinds.

By 5:00 we were free to go and debrief in our room. Carol, Yvonne, and I read over our notes and made sure we understood all the issues. I am not saying that I totally get what is going on, but I knew a lot more than before I arrived in DC!

Yvonne and I trotted around the capital to the ALA reception where we hobnobbed and shared stories with other US librarians. Here I met up with Kristen from the ALA GRO and we chatted about Tweeting the next day. A group of us talked about using #nlld and #nlld09 as the hash tags. You can search twitter for these tags to find all the postings. I unfortunately FAILED to get many tweets out, but more on that later.

Here is a picture of the reception in the Rayburn foyer.

On the way back to the hotel, I looked around the grounds on Capitol Hill. Here is a picture of the rotunda.

Did you notice the weird and menacing clouds? Well, we didn’t! Yvonne and I stopped to ooo and ah over some baby ducklings in the reflection pool and promptly got caught in a rain storm a few blocks from the hotel. We ran, got really cold and wet, and it was NOT fun!

Up in the room, I dried off and went down to the restaurant to get some dinner. The bartender recommended Oyster Po Hoecakes (yes, hoecakes), and feeling adventurous, I ordered it.

Here is a picture of the Hoecakes.

What you are seeing is fried oysters on a bed of shredded lettuce, drizzled with chow chow remoulade on top of very thin cornbread pancakes. It was actually pretty good, and spicy.

After this, I was up in the room blogging.

I will post about the actual meetings with the congressional aids in the next blog.

If anyone else was in DC, please comment and let us know how things were for you!

Mother's Day in DC - Start of Leg Day Adventure

Today I traveled for the first time to Washington D.C. My children were stunned. "Mom, you can't leave on Mother's Day!" But leave I did. Around 10:00 a.m., after a lovely breakfast prepared by my husband (my youngest spread butter on the toast) I arrived at Indianapolis International Airport. By noon, I was flying over the muddy Potomac landing in the nation's capital. I can't believe it has taken me 30+ years to actually make the trip to D.C., and it took an act of Congress to make it happen!

As an AIME board member, I was given the opportunity to represent school library media centers during National Library Legislative Day. This coming Tuesday is the actual lobbying appointments, but we get two days to prepare for this major event. Even though I have been in DC for less than 12 hours, I have learned and experienced so much already.

After I got off the plane, I was greeted at the airport by Yvonne Olinger, Director, Brown County Public Library who is the State Coordinator for Leg (pronounced Ledge Day.) I also met Carol Lunce from Indiana State University who is traveling along as well.

We took the metro to Union Station. The metro is the subway system in D.C. Being an Indy girl all my life, and not widely traveled (or even thinly for that matter) it was my first time on this type of public transit. I felt like a kid looking around in wonder at everything. At Union Station we ate lunch (I had to most awesomely fresh Philadelphia sushi role) and the checked in at the hotel.

In line at the front desk, Yvonne, who doesn't know a stranger, introduced herself to Hal Shill, Ph.D., from Penn State. Hal is a Professor of Political Science and also a librarian. Yvonne recognized him as a Leg Day regular. Hal agreed to share a taxi with us and was pressed into service in our group. We only had about 15 minutes to settle in before we had to take off for our Lobbying 101 meeting for Newbie's. The taxi ride was, well interesting (can you say motion sickness) and arrived at the ALA Washington offices in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods I have ever seen. Here is a pick of the building plate (well, I thought it was cool anyway...).




Our main speaker/trainer was Stephanie Vance, who is, well, an advocacy guru! She served as a congressional staff member and is now (in her words, not mine) "a card carrying member of ALA." She is great fun and a very effective presenter. I would love to see her at an ILF conference! You can find out more about Stephanie and what she does at http://www.advocacyguru.com, or on Twitter http://twitter.com/advocacyguru.com.

Here is Stephanie (and me) in the ALA Washington office. She is the very young one on the right.




I also got a photo op with ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels. Despite his "why am I taking a picture with this woman" look in the picture, he was really a very personable guy!




Probably the highlight of my day was meeting two awesome women from the Office of Intellectual Freedom. Here is a picture of me with Deborah Caldwell-Stone (left), Acting Director and Angela Maycock (right), Assistant Director.



Those of you who know me can well imagine my excitement at meeting these ladies. For those of you who don't know me, it would be like meeting a rock star or a well respected actor. My love for the implementation of school reform, web 2.0 in school libraries, and speculative fiction is matched only by my passion for protecting the 1st Amendment rights of my teen students.

If you would like to view the updates of this meeting on Twitter, please follow me at http://twitter.com/yalibrary, or follow AIME at http://twitter.com/AIME_ILF.

After we left the meeting, we took a very nice walk (OMG the weather was perfect!) around Dupont Circle. For those of you who are from Indy, it is like our downtown circle but much more awesome (please no hate mail for saying this, it is true). Dupont has a famously large GLBT community, more ethnic restaurants in one block than in a 50 miles radios in Indy, and ohhh, the shopping (yes, honey, I got these shoes on sale!)

Here are some pics of Dupont that I didn't take but linked from the www.






My group ate some delicious Asian food at the City Lights of China restaurant. I highly recommend it! These sub terrain restaurants are a very exotic experience for me. Do we have anything like this in Indy?



Here is the scary escalator I went down on my way back to the Metro station. It took minutes and minutes to reach the bottom. The optical effect of going that far down inside a huge concrete tunnel really messed with me. I felt like I was going to fall into the abyss at any moment. Of course crazy natives were literally jogging down the escalator beside me while I was holding on for dear life.



Probably the most hilarious experience was when I was busy taking this pic in the metro station. Hal is the blurry figure closest to the camera.



A couple of young girls got in my way and stalled by the doors of the train. When I tried to step forward, the doors closed on me! Oh man, this Midwestern wall flower was being left behind in DC without my group. The looks on the faces of my companions was so shocked, so horrified, that I burst out laughing as they helplessly watched me fade into the background. I laughed for minutes on end while people gave me a wide berth suspecting insanity.

Here was the good news:

1) The terminal was very clean, well lit, and populated enough that I felt safe. In fact, I am sure it seemed that I was the most dangerous person around with my random laughing!
2) Yvonne was such a good teacher that I already knew how to work the Metro system from my airport experience. I knew I was heading for Union Station, that I was already on the red line, and I had a handy little pocket map thanks to the folks at the ALA office.
3) The next train was only a 7 minute wait. The signage at these terminals is excellent! We librarians could learn a thing or two from the planner who designed this.
4) I am a librarian darn it! I can figure out anything given the right reference sources!!!!

My new friends waited for me at Union Station and we had a good laugh about this!

So now it is midnight in the hotel lobby where the wireless is free. I guess it is time for me to get some rest before my laptop turns into a pumpkin and all is lost. Busy day tomorrow, more to report. Forgive me for typos that you catch before I do, I am a bit tired.

Thanks AIME for providing this opportunity. I hope I am representing you well!