New Year - Fresh Perspective

During the first two weeks of school, I logged 9 hours in the high school media center and 2 hours at the elementary level.  I will begin my real hours on the 23rd of August in the elementary media center.  I am excited about the life that I had seen in the elementary middle school last winter.

I spent a couple of my hours re-shelving books; it amazing that students could check out books during open house, but destiny was up and running and waiting for students.

I spent 3 hours working in destiny; this is the first year that the media specialists in our county as responsible for keeping up with textbook check out.  Each book for every student had to be put into destiny so that a record was kept determining where all texts books were.

I spent 2 hours on freshman orientation.  The media specialists schedule all 9th grade classes in the second weeks of school and familiarize them with what the media center has to offer and conducts a scavenger hunt so that students can get used to looking for specific resources.

I also worked with the media clerk on looking up and placing orders for teacher resources.  Additionally, she showed me the financial aspects of the media center.  Unfortunately, money is the one area that the county will fire its employees.  It was interesting to hear about the additional responsibilities that the media staff takes on to assist both students and teachers.  The media staff sponsors the junior class and with the obligation, they are responsibility for the junior/senior, which includes taking up money for prom tickets.

The media center also sponsors a relay for life team and that also requires them to keep up with monies that different members collect throughout the year.  These additional duties provide a connection between the media staff and our students.

The  2 hours that I spent at the elementary school was meeting the media center specialist and watching many classes come in to check out textbooks for their classes.  Rather than keying in books numbers, the elementary school was scanning in the student books.  I talked to the media specialist about her responsibilities so that I could get a feel for how I use my hours to help her achieve necessary tasks.  I look forward to getting a better feel for the elementary level.

I also logged an hour by attending the beginning of the year county-wide media specialist meeting.  It was interesting to be privy to media dialogue.  There was a log of conversation about books and book money.  Several principals had paid out of their own accounts book loses, but some of the books had been paid for and the principals wanted to be reimbursed.  I did not realize that this was common practice.  There was also an interesting discussion about the role that the new superintendent of instruction wanted media specialists to play in instruction.  He showed the end-of-year tests results and the AYP expectations.  From this he challenged each media specialist to ensure that the 100% expectation could be met in 2014.