[CALIBK12] Back to School Night

[Ellie Goldstein-Erickson]

When I worked at a middle school I held a book fair for both Back to
School Night in the fall and Open House in the spring. I advertised
heavily and had it open 45  minutes before the first class met and 30
minutes after the last class ended. In three years I raised several
thousand dollars for the library.

At my high school I have given tours of our new facility, handed out
bookmarks with the remote access for our online databases and thanked
community members for their support. However, in recent years our student
body has grown, and teachers are using remote portables at the elementary
school across the street. The administration has assigned the teachers
from the portables to meet parents in the library. This has cut down on
our ability to meet visitors and walk them around without disturbing the
parents and teachers. We are trying something new this year (tomorrow
night!), with the enthusiastic support of our supervising vice principal.
We have carefully cut apart pages from withdrawn atlases that are
outdated. I will be at a table in the food court, where there are
refreshments and administrators meeting parents. I will hand out the atlas
pages as "ecologically correct" wrapping paper, in addition to a flyer
with a short blurb about each of our databases, purchased with parcel tax
money, and the information about remote access. I will also have envelopes
for folks to make a donation to our high school fundraising group,
designating the money for the library.  Now that we have two teacher
librarians, again paid for out of Berkeley's parcel tax, my colleague will
greet visitors to the library and describe the program. 

I am hopeful this will be a success!

Ellie

Ellie Goldstein-Erickson, Teacher Librarian
Berkeley High School Library
510-644-6857
ellie at berkeley.k12.ca.us

"Daydream Queen" <daydream.queen at gmail.com> writes:
>Just curious...What do you do for back to School Night?
>
>At my high school, all teachers are organized by departments in the
>gym and parents and students make rounds and chat with staff.
>
>I usually display some pictures of the library and students doing
>activites.
>Last year I made a little handout about MySpace and Social Networking
>sites so parents will know the basics (if they don't already) Of
>course some are way more into MySpace then their children too I've
>found.
>I entertained having a book fair this year but was turned down, does
>anyone use this forum for a book fair?
>Maybe I can rig up one of our databases so kids could search for
>things and have them display on a screen?
>maybe a list of our usernames and passwords for online databases?
>
>Just typing this email helps me kick start... If you have any tidbits
>to contribute... That would help too... I'm trying to focus on
>resources for parents mostly...
>
>-- 
>Sarah Bosler, LMT
>Montclair High School
>Chaffey Joint Union High School District
>http://mohigh.com
>
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