Dear School Board - Your Librarians are Teachers

by Dorcas Hand

My last post discussed the Remote Learning impact of school librarians, as explained in the new PDF School Librarian Role in Pandemic Learning Conditions from the American Association of School Librarians. That table is comprehensive, addressing 5 aspects of the school librarian’s job in various modes. This week, I want to look at just one block from the full table, the one that considers Librarians as Instructional Partners in Distance Learning.

"Distance Learning Learners are required to learn from home with no face-to-face contact." I've copied the words from the orange box to be sure you can read them. With this in mind, I want you to consider how different online learning is for the teacher and the student; part of the role of the librarian is to help ease the situation for both. ​Here are some ways to think about what that means.

​Please remember that the certified school librarians in Texas have at least 2 years of classroom teaching experience, a Masters degree, and at least 18 hours of specialized graduate-level education in library management. They are some of the most qualified TEACHERS on a campus, and they work with ALL students and ALL teachers and administrators. Any campus without a certified librarian is missing out on a huge opportunity to enjoy better support for teachers and students to connect to the perfect resources for their needs.

As a school board member, here are some questions you might want to ask principals on your campuses to establish that these things are happening:

• How is your campus librarian supporting teachers to better understand the many digital resources and platforms available to HISD students?
• How is the librarian involved in student orientation? 
• Does your librarian collaborate with teachers regularly? How do you encourage that collaboration?

Looking beyond online instruction, here are are examples of what you should expect to see in all schools staffed by a certified librarian. You should see the librarian doing these things whether digital, hybrid or in person classes are in session.

• Bringing book ideas that relate to classroom topics
• Checking with teachers about upcoming class topics in order to offer additional digital resources that support the topic for differentiated learning
• Working to support special interests or needs in a given classroom, for single topics as well as ongoing
• Reaching out to individual students with books of interest for free reading

If the principal can’t show you specific examples, perhaps your request will serve as a prompt that they discover for themselves all the work the librarian is doing - or to consider adding a librarian to the faculty. HISD has some amazing librarians working hard to be sure the students on their campuses are getting great books and other digital resources to read for fun and in support of classroom assignments. They are also working to ensure that all the teachers have the perfect resources and training to plan and deliver outstanding lessons whether remote or in person.

When campuses open again, be sure to visit your libraries to see the evidence first hand, and to understand better what those librarians need to be even more successful. I’ll be back soon to look at other aspects of school librarians’ work, but today I leave you to wonder: 
“What don’t I know about school librarians as Instructional Partners in my schools? How can knowing more about them help ME, the School Board member, do MY job better?”

Image from https://www.hofstra.edu/academics/dl/index.html