NewsLeader - 2006 Winter

Northeast District

Over 30 media specialists in the Northeast Georgia region (Pioneer District) met for the first in the Media Specialists Consortium series.  Northeast GA RESA school improvement specialist Jeanie Trotochaud initiated the meeting as part of the RESA’s Reading and Writing Improvement Plan.  Dr. Trotochaud opened the session with the statement that library media specialists are in the perfect place to bring reading and writing across the curriculum.  She also felt that supporting media specialists would build opportunities for media specialist/teacher collaboration in planning and implementing curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices.  The 30 media specialists present voiced enthusiasm to be involved in problem-solving the obstacles our schools are facing.  The first consortium’s activities were as follows:

  • Media specialists briefly shared background and years of experience (collectively, our level of experience was impressive!)
  • Informal discussions with elementary, middle, and high groups over refreshments (excellent discussions from different tables including “what research projects are you working on right now?” and “Do you know about the Bluford books?” and “What are you doing to promote reading?”)
  • Within grade-level groups, we developed our top 5 concerns and needs for professional development
  • We reorganized our concerns, and found that they fit into 4 main areas:
    • Curriculum
      • How many of us have been trained in GPS?  
      • How do we integrate information literacy and technology skills with GPS?  
      • Collaboration – How do we do it?  How do we collaborate effectively?  We would like to see real examples!
    • Best Practices – what research-based practices can we promote in our programs?
    • Research skills
      • We keep hearing about low research scores across the district--what are the questions the kids are missing?
      • Why are they missing these skills?  Are we not teaching it, are they not remembering, are we stressing the wrong things, etc.?
      • What do we need to do to make sure EVERY child meets these expectations?
      • How do we assess/benchmark information literacy skills within our school? 
      • Information Literacy Checklist – AASL standards, ISTE Technology standards, state checklist?
      • How do we make sure we are all building information literacy skills K-12…K-Beyond?
    • Advocacy
      • Data analysis and utilization – How do we use the data the schools are now generating to support the library media center and improve instruction?  How do we support our faculty, staff, and school with data?
      • What is happening with SACS?  Many of us are concerned about the loss of specific number of books, electronic books, and job description.
      • How do we support our library media center budgets and programming?
      • How can we continue to support a district-level collaboration between media specialists?  (Build the consortium?

All media specialists present were given GLMA membership forms and encouraged to join the email listserv.