NewsLeader - 2006 Fall

Highlights of the Fall GLMA Board of Directors Meeting September 22, 2006 Classic Center , Athens , Georgia
12:30 – 3:30

Reading of the Minutes from the Summer meeting, June, Summer Institute, Macon :

Read by Kathleen Disney

Treasury Report:

Treasury report, Rebecca Amerson,

Committee Reports

Membership Report:

Rosalind Dennis reported that membership as of September 22, 2006 is 642 which is an increase from last year’s total of 570. We are still moving toward our 1000 mark goal.

Cawood Cornelius stated that Gwinnett County registered 119 media specialists to attend the Georgia Conference of Media Organizations.

Betsy Razza stated that she visited 2 Georgia State University classrooms this summer to explain the importance of GLMA membership to upcoming Library Media Specialists. She believes regular visits to this and other library programs would be helpful in terms of adding members.

Cawood Cornelius commented that more RESAs and ETTCs are holding media consortia now that they are associated with colleges. Betsy Razza stated that this would be an idea for District Chairs to consider as a way to contact new members.

Communication Report:

Newsleader

Cawood stated that the next newsletter will be a wrap-up of GaCOMO events and sessions. He will set the deadline within the next two weeks.

GLMA Website

Cawood is continuing to work with colleges and universities to gain approval to link the library media degree requirements of each college and university in Georgia to the GLMA website.

Media Educator

Cawood is trying to revive the Media Educator, and is looking for a college or university that may be interested in taking it on as a continuing project.

Awards and Grants Report:

Mini-Grants

Betsy Razza reported that the Mini-Grant Application has been updated for 2007. There is now a cover sheet so that all entries can be judged blindly, as they were this year. Advertising will begin right away with repeated messages in an effort to increase participation.

Library Media Specialist of the Year (LMSOY)

Susan Grigsby ordered the awards from Creative Awards and Promotions in Woodstock, Georgia We had 11 district winners and 1 state winner which is much better participation than we have had in the past.

Tom Beggs, President of GAIT, will be investigating the possibilities of reviving the national LMSOY award through their national affiliate, the Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT). Donna Milner, President of GLMA, and Susan Grigsby, LMSOY Chair for GLMA are both investigating the possibilities of a national LMSOY award through their national affiliate, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL).

Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl (HRRB)Report:

Barbara Hallstrom reported that there are now four districts, North, South, East and West. There are Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl blogs now for elementary, middle and high schoolers. The HRRB has experienced greater participation than in the past including Fulton County and City of Atlanta . They have begun an online registration for all of Georgia .

Summer Institute Report:

Lynn Strickland reported that the Summer Institute was very successful and that it will be held in Macon , again next year on June 6, 7, 2007. There were 33 counties systems, 3 city systems, and 3 private schools represented, and a representative from Georgia State University . There were 10 presenters who presented at least 2 times each. Donna will also be working with the Summer Institute next year. The registration form, professional learning form and maps to Macon State are available on the GLMA website.

Government Relations Report:

Betsy Razza has agreed to become the sole Chairperson for this position.

Donna Milner reported what Cindi Phillip, President of AASL, had to say in her presentation the evening before. The NCES has made some small changes. Instead of support services we are now supporting services-instruction. That is not too much of a change yet. But AASL has drafted the wording for a change of the definition and in that change they are talking about the library media programs being a part of classroom instruction. It identifies that we are the largest classroom in the school. We are teachers. Children and teachers are benefiting from our teaching and test scores are affected by what we teach.

She went on to talk about the NCLB Reauthorization coming up this year. A committee is working on updating it and AASL has drafted some language to go into that. Every time it says teacher and principal we will insert teacher, school library media specialist, principal. In that situation we are talking about becoming Highly Qualified. This is a term being paid a lot of attention to in our systems. There are some funds tied into that. We discussed where we should go and what we should do from here both GLMA and AASL. None of this is in stone. It is all being worked on.

Michelle Holcomb stressed the importance of having legislators visit our schools to see what we have done with the funds they have given us and to show them why we are asking for more funding.

Independent Schools Liaison Report:

Patty McEwen reported that more independent schools needed to become involved. That she is associated with more schools from north Georgia than those in the South because of the travel distance. Patty is willing to work on developing a list of Independent Schools in Georgia so that GLMA may develop a contact list.

AASL Liaison Report:

Lynn Strickland had already discussed the New Orleans meeting at our last GLMA meeting and Melissa Johnston also sent in an electronic report of the last AASL meetings.

Department of Education (DOE) Liaison Report:

Judy Serritella could not present but Susan Grigsby attended Judy’s DOE update session and reported that Judy is looking for more funding for “Georgia Reads More”. In the session Judy reminded all media specialists that Flexible Scheduling is a mandate not an option. Principals cannot schedule a rotation with the library media center as a class to provide a planning period for teachers. Judy also discussed personnel changes at DOE, the Georgia Peach Teen Book Award, the Media Specialist Handbook, the Children’s Literature Conference, the Media Matters Newsletter, and GALILEO.

Sherry Grove commented that there was a full explanation of Flexible Scheduling in the fall issues of Media Matters.

District Reports

North Central District Report:

Esther Brenneman reported that in conjunction with the North Georgia RESA, Esther and Rebecca Amerson helped organize a media consortium called CAMP – Collaboration and Communication, Advocacy, Membership and Participation. They discussed many areas related to media and gained several new members for GLMA. (see attached for details)

Old Business

Revising of Information Literacy Checklist and GPS Correlation:

Donna stated that after reviewing the GLMA Information Literacy Checklist, a committee that met Wednesday evening, September 20, 2006 decided that an update is not necessary at this time. There will be an effort to post Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) correlations with other state and national standards on the GLMA website. There will be links on the GLMA website that link to standards correlations being posted by other organizations. The assignments made by the committee were:

Jefferson County will post middle school correlations

DeKalb County will post third grade correlations

Camden County will post fifth grade correlations

These correlations will be posted on the GLMA website and used to work toward the production of lesson plans and units. The state is focusing on unit production, as opposed to lesson plan production, to link to the Georgia ’s unit builder on the Georgia Standards website. There is still a need for more grades to be correlated and more people who are willing to do this.

What can GLMA do to facilitate and expand knowledge in this area? Judy Serritella has plans to update the Media Professional Development Modules produced by the DOE. Judy agrees that the GPS correlations must be mentioned in these modules. Judy will call upon GLMA members for content and will produce the modules with Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB).

Michelle Linderman commented that the high school GPS must also be correlated to the End of Course Testing (EOCT) and the Georgia High School Graduation Test (GHSGT). Donna stated that Language Arts has been the focus because the GPS in this area has been fully implemented; other areas are not completely implemented yet in all grades.

National Educational Computing Conference (NECC):

Cawood Cornelius reported that the NECC which is the annual conference for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) will be held in Atlanta this summer. GLMA is in charge of the “Ask Me” stations and volunteers will be needed.

New Business

ISTE Affiliation:

GLMA can become an affiliate with ISTE for $150.00 and will gain significant name recognition during the conference if we choose to take this action.

Motion was made by Cawood Cornelius that GLMA become an ISTE affiliate for at least this year as a trial period.

Second, Rosalind Dennis

Motion was approved by a show of hands.

Nomination Committee Recommendations:

Rosalind Dennis announced:

Nominating committee: Rosalind Dennis, Barbara Hallstrom, Kathleen Disney

Nominees: President, Rosalind Dennis; President-Elect, Sherry Grove; Secretary, Kathleen Disney; Treasurer, Rebecca Amerson.

Ballots will go out in November with a deadline of mid- December.

Additional changes to the Board include:

Betsy Razza will be the Governmental Relations Chairperson for 2007.

Joan Abraham will work to coordinate the GLMA Mini-grants for 2007.

Deborah Touchton will work to coordinate the Intellectual Freedom Award for 2007.

Winter 2007 Meeting:

Rosalind Dennis reported that the date for the Winter Meeting will be January 26-27, 2oo7. There was discussion of having a Friday social with installation of officers so that Saturday could be dedicated to the GLMA meeting and other business. The meeting will be limited to a Friday night stay and leaving Saturday evening.

Macon Literary Festival:

Michelle Linderman announced that the 3 rd annual Macon Literary Festival wll be held November 4, 10a.m.- 4p.m.. She will post information about this event on the Georgia Media Listserv and the Anansi Listserv.

Adjournment