Edmonds District Librarian Meeting @ MW K-8

The librarians of the district met at Maplewood K-8 School this afternoon. John was our host. The meeting was faced paced. People shared information about the proposed library cuts that were eventually dropped. There was some sharing about how we needed to come together to prevent cuts in future years. We talked about tying our work to the new certification competencies. We also talked about effective communication with administration.
Other topics of the meeting included: district technology help, upcoming conversion to a Destiny circulation, electronic lockers for student work, CBA work with technology and strategies to thrive during the spring post-WASL research season.

CLP District Librarians Study Group @ TP K-8

The librarians participating in the Collaborative Literacy Project study group met today at Jenny's library at Terrace Park K-8 School. We talked about the chapters in "Strategies the Work" about determining importance in text, summarizing, and synthesizing. Ideas for lessons that develop these skills were shared. We also added 2002 & 2003 WCCPBA titles to our list of books that fit the various strategies. I'm looking forward to next month's meeting!

Great News about Edmonds Librarians

We learned this afternoon that the district is backing off of its plan to make the 6 smallest elementary schools have 1/2 time teacher-librarians. This is truly wonderful news. The smallest school (under 200 FTE) librarian will be .6, our district library services coordinator will be reduced to .5. So while the news is great, there are still going to be some cuts.
I know that there was a groundswell of community support for libraries. Parents from schools all over the district (not just the 6) email board members, district officials, and legislators. Librarians were working on educating their principals and other district staff. People at the IMD were working on educating district budget officials on the importance of full-time librarians.
Many people are still planning on attending tomorrow night's school board meeting and the librarians will be presenting an informational packet to the board.

First Ever Shoreline-Edmonds Librarian Social

After work today, a group of school librarians met at Scott's Bar & Grill on the snowy King/Snohomish County line. There were 4 from Shoreline and 5 from Edmonds, which is pretty good since Joanna & I decided to try this earlier this week. No agenda, we just had a social time. We talked about the proposed Edmonds cuts and how they can support our efforts to stop them. We learned about how each of our districts operates and we also learned about some good Chinese restaurants in Seattle. Some of us talked about how we might get a "friends of school libraries" organization started. It was a good time and we're thinking of doing this again in May/June.

WASL Testing Begins

In the Edmonds District, most elementary librarians are the testing coordinators for their buildings. That means a lot of extra work (at least this year there is a stipend!).
The end of last week I was sorting test booklets into class sets and organizing them into crates (I use a milk crate for each teacher/each test). Also last week, I lead the proctor training in my building, printing specialist schedule changes, divided pencils into class groups, printing "do not disturb" signs, and answered many questions from teachers (a lot of info. on dist. testing page).
So today the teachers came to the library this morning to sign out the test booklets for the day's testing. All the prep from last week made everything run smoothly.

Edmonds Librarians Crisis Meeting #2

After work, the district librarians met at Mountlake Terrace Elementary School to continue our work on preventing the budget-cut proposal that would effect the librarians at the 6 smallest elementary schools (blog). Tasks were divided: packet for school board, flyer for public, research, etc. The word is that although surplus notices went out, there is still some hope. It was another productive session. Everyone is to encourage others to attend next week's school board meeting.