The Texas Association of School Library Administrators conference...a small group of school library folks, about 75-100. Heard attendance is around 90 this year even in the midst of the changes and cuts. Many, many new folks on board...lead librarians were really encouraged to come this year.
Remember when you read this...it is a rough cut!!
Selecting Multicultural Materials and the Tejas Star Book Award
Good list of books from ESC Region One for the 2011-2012 award.
5th year for this award. Let's get more students involved in these books..from across the state.
These books were originally written in Spanish or true Spanish/English bilingual format.
The year's list are all in the bilingual format.
Other lists to consider when working on collection development:
Mildred L. Batchelder Award - published in another language and translated into English
more later!
Facts worthy of thinking about:
English language learners in Texas schools - involves 86 different languages...86!!! 830,713 students. Almost 91% of these 830 thousand + students are Spanish speakers learning English.
Hispanics currently make up 16% of the U.S. population but only 2% of the books published have Hispanic characters and Hispanics make up only 2% of authors publishing.
African-Americans currently make up 12% of the U.S. population but only 5.2% of the books published have Black characters and African-Americans are only 2.7% of the authors publishing.
Advocacy for School Library Leaders: A Call to Action
Judy Moreillon
What ONE role of the five that we do will save us!
The group voted this way:
leader 24
instruction partner 15
info specialist 11
teacher 7
program administrator 0
her group when she initiated this study chose instructional partner as the most influential.
My personal choice is teacher...in order to survive I believe we must be seen as a teacher first and foremost because the power brokers understand that position, that term itself. The other roles are natural partners to being an effective teacher.
As is my problem often, I think instructional partner is a semantic issue...to me collaborative teacher is the same thing!
And what I have know for a VERY long time is we must be ALL FIVE all the time!
But I still stick with teacher being my primary role if I am to survive as a school librarian.
Feel free to share your own thoughts!
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
God bless her, Gloria Meraz of TLA is trying to update the legislative/school financial issues as best she can with the positive approach she always presents. I just can't capture all the ideas in my head, much less try to put it on the blog. Read the papers, go to the internet, read what you want, write to who you think can influence the issues...it is just TOO much for me at this moment...maybe I can make sense out of it later. And remember one of the best ways to tell them how you feel...whatever side you are on, whatever group you support..VOTE. The primaries in March, the general election the next November.
Questions
SB8 vote next week
SB6 / HB6
instructional materials allotments
use the money to purchase databases, technology or textbooks "super fund"
must be spent on things that related to assessments....STAR, the tests
another version...must be spent on things that cover the TEKs
remember that allotments do not always get funded!
Moving from ratings to distinctions
School can earn distinctions in
fine arts
physical fitness
acquisition of foreign language, 2nd language (ASL)
academics
21st century workforce
and the new 6th one advanced learners - high performers ...this one is still in development
it will still be a "competition"
but think about how you as a librarian can help your school achieve these distinctions!
Remember - SILENCE GETS YOU NO WHERE
Ok...I need to close out this session...more later. I am overwhelmed thinking about all of this AND all the side conversations going on both in sessions and breaks and meals!!
2 comments:
Vaughn, Actually, the vote for "teacher" was 17. Before Empowering Learners, teacher was listed as the top role. I totally agree with the need for school librarians to serve and to be seen as full-fledged teachers. But if they focus on this role, some librarians may be excellent teachers but teach in isolation from their classroom teacher colleagues. That is not a best practice because their work will have less direct impact on student achievement and will be less likely than the instructional partner role to engender advocates for the program.
I think you misunderstood what Vaughn meant. If you read it through again, I believe you will understand what she was getting at.
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