Creating a Transformative Library Vision: TASL Winner Talks to Us

by Renee Smith-Faulkner, Asst. Superintendent of Technology Services, Castleberry ISD; 2015 Winner, TASL Distinguished Library Service Award for School Administrators

Please share this post with any and all administrators and librarian colleagues who may not read this blog. Ms Smith Faulkner is truly our advocate. Use the tools she recommends. D.Hand, Editor 

I would like to begin the blog post by thanking all of the librarians, teacher-librarians, hybrarians, and Twitterbrarians across the state for the leadership and support you offer your campuses, teachers, students, and the community each day. Districts and administrators that employ you as a vital resource and recognize the potential return on their investment have the best opportunities for transforming student learning on their campuses. 

Since receiving the Distinguished Administrator of the Year Award at TLA last year, I have had the opportunity to meet some of the most dedicated librarians in the state via face-to-face, email, and through participation in the #txlchat. However, when I speak with them, I hear a common theme amongst them. Can you help change school administrators’ perceptions of the library program and educate them on the evolving role of the librarian as a 21st century campus leader? How do you begin the re-branding of a library program and implementing a transformative vision?

First, I assure librarians that although Castleberry ISD has some great things happening in their libraries, this can be the story of every school library. Administrators can develop a Transformative Library Vision and turn it into a reality by starting with these 10 strategies we implemented in our district.
  • Create a Shared Vision for the Library.
    • Create a Library Improvement Plan. Present the plan to the school board and report progress on goals and objectives. Without a district-wide plan, internal and external stakeholders might not recognize the library as an integral component of the school community.
  • Staff Your Library with a Full-Time Librarian.
    • Value their expert knowledge. With the exponential growth in digital information, it is more important now to have an expert that can assist students in deciphering the validity of digital information. 
  • Ensure Librarians are a Member of the Campus Leadership Team.
    • Librarians provide insight on the campus culture.
  • Involve Librarians in Planning and Facilitating District-Wide Professional Development.
    • Librarians can help others create a strong Personal Learning Network which provides individualized professional development based on campus and teacher needs.
  • Provide a Budget to Equip Your Library with Digital Resources and Technology Equipment.
    • Be careful, librarians are instructional experts and not meant to spend their day on technical support. Use them to transform the learning culture that encourages collaboration, communication, and supports innovation.
  • Schedule Meetings with Your Library Staff Regularly
    • Do your librarians have a scheduled time to meet collaboratively, plan, and create a common vision to bring about purposeful change and establish one clear voice?
    • Meeting regularly with the campus administrator helps build a positive relationship between the library and campus administration. These meetings can change how the library program is perceived.
  • Transform the Library Space to Accommodate Collaboration and Personal Learning Networks
    • Allow librarians to have conversations about what these spaces should look like and what tools should be available to support these learning spaces. Yes, coding, makerspaces, and gaming should be funded and implemented in the library.
  • Share Library Success Stories through a Hashtag Embedded on the District Website
    • Promote your library programs through the power of technology, and this can make all of the difference in your library program. If you don’t have a district, campus, or library hashtag, create one now.
  • Don’t Be Afraid to Take a Risk
    • Don’t roll the dice and bet the farm, but instead be willing to put transformative ideas “out there” and don’t be afraid to present ideas that are outside of the box.
  • And Did I Say, Staff Your Library with a Full-Time Librarian
    • Librarians make a difference and impact student learning.

Personally, I can’t imagine what our district would be like without the leadership of our teacher-librarians. We meet monthly as a group to assess the progress of our District Library Improvement Plan, so necessary adjustments can be made to ensure goals and objectives are reached. In addition, technology coaches are often invited and planning for campus professional development and teacher support networks are established. Then, the teacher-librarian for each campus reports progress on library initiatives during campus improvement monitoring meetings held each six weeks with the campus principal, assistant principal, technology coaches, and myself.  During this time, standardized student resources are shared so all stakeholders can support key collaborative initiatives for the year such as the creation of student digital portfolios, student blogs, teacher Canvas classes, and flipped lesson resources.

In our district, it has become second nature for our administrators to view teacher-librarians as a vital member of the campus leadership team.  Our administrators embrace and advocate for creating and supporting libraries designed to accommodate a “collaborative” and “connected” learning pedagogy that elicits 21st century learning.

The transformation did not come easy or without a few bumps in the road. However, my experience has confirmed that an investment in your library program is well worth the return!

Administrators, for more information, I encourage you to contact me using any of the following methods:
       Twitter: @faulknerr
       E-mail: smithr@castleberryisd.net
       Office: 817-252-2087

14 comments:

  1. Our high school librarian has become such an integral part of enhancing the learning experience for our students. Teachers now use her to help design research lessons, extend learning activities, and create engaging opportunities for students outside the four walls of the classroom. Our newly designed library has promoted student book check-out and created an inviting atmosphere that facilitates a safe, secure and structured environment for all that come in.
    Rethinking how we "market" our library to our student body made a big difference in student and staff perceptions of what a library, and a librarian, can offer to the learning experience.

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  2. The district librarians do an amazing job in supporting the learning in the classroom, as well as collaborating with our Instructional and Technology teams within CISD to foster the culture of Growth Mindset by facilitating professional development opportunities which facilitates risk-taking for our faculty and staff. In addition, our librarians have embraced the idea of partnering with teachers to create transformative lessons for our students by assisting in flipped classrooms, video tutorials, and providing support in our blended learning classes. I could not imagine our district without these great people helping our students experience success every day!

    John Ramos
    Superintendent - Castleberry ISD

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  3. With a librarian like Sallee Clark, you can rest assured the instructional needs of students are being met. She is a key player on the leadership team ensuring technology is part of our digital learning environment. She collaborates with grade levels to demo apps and create instructional videos, distributes iPads, models the SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition) model, holds UIL Club meetings, holds Maker Club meetings, etc. Bottom line.... Mrs. Clark is a versatile individual who values the importance of student learning. I am proud she is the librarian of Castleberry Elementary.

    Ricardo Montalvo, Principal of Castleberry Elementary

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  4. Transformation...our Joy James Librarian does this inside and out of the library. April Scott plays an integral role with the use of technology and the transformation of the learning process on our campus. She is always there with resources but the support she offers our teachers and students is what makes the difference. She is always collaborating, co-teaching, modeling, exploring, researching, and most importantly laying foundations for us to create strong 21st Century Learners. Thank you to April Scott and Renee Smith-Faulkner for having a vision and helping us accomplish it here at JJE!

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  5. Jace Daily, the librarian at Castleberry High School is an incredible asset not only to our students and staff but to other high school librarians that come in and visit our Café and library set up. She plays an integral part in her library PLN and learns and shares her ideas with our teachers and students. Thank you Jace Daily for challenging yourself professionally to provide the best possible learning environment for our students.

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  6. Our teacher librarian, Sallee Clark, is sensational! She has expectations for her library that correlate with the current technological culture in which we live as well as the traditionally beloved atmosphere of a library conducive to a love of literature. She is innovative and incredibly resourceful. Our campus would honestly grieve her absence.

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  7. At IMMS, our teacher librarian, Doeni Onco, does a wonderful job of keeping the campus and community informed on what is going on in the IMMS library. This sample from her October newsletter shows just what I am talking about. Thank you Doeni for being so willing to help with communication, posters, and even daily announcements to keep all informed! https://twitter.com/oncolibrarian/status/662357240670629888/photo/1

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  8. The elementary teacher-librarians are three of the most positive, collaborative, creative, and optimistic individuals in CISD. These three inspiring educators have transformed our libraries – they are now bright, collaborative, learning environments. You can walk the halls and quickly identify when a class is going to the library, the students walk down the halls with a pep in their step and exciting anticipation of what is to come. Our librarians work with teachers, students, technology department and administrators to ensure that they facilitate an environment to develop 21stCentury Learners.

    Thank you Sallee Clark, and Allison Fitzgerald and April Scott for ALL that you do and inspiring CISD to constantly grow to meet the needs of our learner.

    Jessica Batchko
    CISD Elementary Technology Coach

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  9. At A.V. Cato, Allison Fitzgerald has changed the culture at our school to make the library a destination the students want to go to not just because of the books, but for an assortment of reasons - many of them just on the periphery of the books themselves. Every day, students who walk in to our library can expect to find an activity awaiting them - a scavenger hunt, a matching game, a word game - on everything from a scannable bar-code to a simple worksheet. These are all thanks to the talent and creativity of Mrs. Fitzgerald. All this while meeting classes daily to support Language Arts teachers and the standards they are teaching in the classrooms - everything from genre studies, to writing skills, to research projects.

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  10. I don't even know where to begin! Our librarian, Sallee Clark, is AMAZING!! She is constantly collaborating with the teachers and coming up with fantastic lessons that reinforce what the teachers are doing in the classroom. For myself personally, she is someone I can come to at any time for advice, suggestions, and any kind of technology support. She has been absolutely wonderful and we are very thankful we have her as part of our team!

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  11. When growing up 20-30 years ago (or longer), saying that you were going to the library was seen as a label that branded students as nerds or some other form of derogatory epithet. Libraries like the ones in CISD are completely eradicating that false stereotype. Students want to be in the libraries. They have quickly become for many the most popular place in the school. Students who never before would have graced the doorsteps of a school library are gravitating to these spaces of learning and discovery. The previous model of dusty tomes are no more. Now, students and teachers are not struggling to find reasons to go to the library. More accurately, it is trying to find more reasons to stay out of the library because there are an abundance of ways that this teacher could use, and have used, and will continue to use the CHS library and Jace Daily as a resource to reach, engage, and invigorate students in what they are learning in my classes and improve myself as an educator.

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    Replies
    1. I forgot to mention, or emphasize, that spaces are great, but it is the people who are available whenever they are needed that make the library a place where anyone can make magic. Without them, the lifeblood of creativity would be on life support. Libraries are the heart and soul of a school, but without librarians like Jace Daily, that heart would not beat as efficiently or as productively.

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  12. Oh, and the data is in to support Ms. Smith-Faulkner's point, "Staff Your Library." According to the study, "states that gained school librarian positions between 2005 and 2009 experienced larger increases and no decreases in National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) reading scores for 4th grade, while states that lost school librarians experienced smaller increases or decreases in reading scores." http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/NY49089.htm

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