GLMA Pioneer District Region Update:
The Pioneer District gathered on September 4th at Barrow Elementary in Clarke County. Members of the Northeast GA RESA Media Consortium encouraged all Pioneer District media specialists to attend a “joint meeting” to share updates on the following: (1) Community Libraries Outreach and Collaboration (CLOC) project from the University of Georgia libraries (http://www.libs.uga.edu/cloc/index.html), (2) Northeast Georgia RESA’s Media Consortium and Literacy Advisory Board collaboration (RESA’s Reading and Writing Improvement plan and Literacy initiatives), and (3) DOE updates from Judy Serritella. Important points mentioned:
- Lexiles – media specialists will need special training to help support the implementation of Lexiles throughout the state. We are in a prime opportunity to serve our schools with this professional development. http://public.doe.k12.ga.us/lexile.aspx
Send thank you notes to the Governor for our $100 gift cards – especially mention what important items we purchased with this money.
- GALILEO
- The new GALILEO interfaces will be coming in January. This will include a teen-friendly version! Examples of these interfaces are now online (go to GALILEO main page – select “Preview the new, improved GALILEO.”
- Decision-makers depend on statistics to support GALILEO. Everyone should check their GALILEO school system statistics periodically to make sure it is truly being used in our schools. Bottom line: if we aren’t using GALILEO – we will not have a strong case to continue funding. It’s easy to access:
- www.galileo.usg.edu
- Click “Help”
- Click “Support for Libraries”
- Click “Usage Statistics”
- Click “GALILEO Usage Statistics”
- Click “GALILEO usage statistics reporting tool”
- Compare with other systems your size
- SACS (Southern Association of Schools and Colleges) - Please review the new standards for the merged NCA/SACS/CASI/NSSE - AdvancED. After much advocacy, we applauded the addition of quantitative guidelines to the standards.
Standards
Guidelines
It is important to note that the guidelines are NOT standards – they are recommendations “to assist in providing a quality learning environment.” It is important for us now to become familiar with these documents before we are approached by administrators who will need our help to interpret the standards and guidelines. Remember that SACS standards have historically supported us with the following: “10 books per student,” the media specialist to student ratio, flexible scheduling, information access, and library staffing.