[CALIBK12] Professional collaboration?

[Janice GilmoreSee]

>From a district librarian's perspective, professional collaboration time is key to creating an effective school library "community". Our district also has early release time scheduled once each week specifically for collaborative meetings.

Once a month, one of the early release days is used for an all-district library Professional Learning Community (PLC) meeting. All the library staff (regardless of job title) attend and we share projects, programs, concerns, etc. This meeting has allowed us to break out of our typical "isolation" from others in the same position. 

Additionally, all of the new library employees (for the first two years) have an additional meeting once a month which they attend with their mentor (an experience LMT or library media tech depending on the position), to bring them up to speed on practical matters. 

On the weeks without library PLC meetings, I encourage them to attend grade level or department level collaborative meetings at their sites. In this way, each person is able to participate in many different collaborative activities. 

It is very challenging to find the time to create a "learning community" when districts don't have a district level person to coordinate the meetings, but it is definitely worth the effort if you want to give it a try.

Cheers,
Janice



Janice Gilmore-See
Acting District Librarian
La Mesa-Spring Valley School District
(619) 668-5700 ext. 6331

"You may have tangible wealth untold, 
caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. 
Richer than I, you can never be 
- I had a mother who read to me." - Strickland Gillian

>>> "Janice J Wells-Rottner" <jjwells at fresno.k12.ca.us> 10/15/07 8:52 AM >>>
Good question, Tom. I wonder if there is better collaboration in
districts with a District Librarian? And is anything being done to
create effective working relationships between technicians and LMT's,
which is often strained? And are the elementary technicians being
included in this important support endeavor? Lot's of food for thought!
Ideas? Comments?
Thanks,
Jan

Jan Rottner
Duncan Polytechnical  High School
Library Media Teacher
(559) 248-7080 X82202
http://www.fresno.k12.ca.us/schools/s077/sch077hp.htm 
e-mail:jjwells at fresno.k12.ca.us 
"The cost of libraries is cheap compared to that of an ignorant
nation." Walter Cronkite

>>> Thomas Nixon <Thomas.Nixon at fresnounified.org> 10/13/07 05:59PM >>>
Joy's question earlier about collaboration got me to thinking. Let me
start by saying that being a library media teacher is the best job that
I have every had and I am quite pleased I made the change.

That being said, I get what Joy is talking about with collaboration.
Almost without exception, we do not have other librarians at our sites.

So here's my question (which piggybacks on Joy's) which is:

How do you collaborate with other LMTs in your district (either
formally or informally)? And, for some of us who are the lone LMT in a
district, how do you collaborate outside the district?



Tom Nixon
=====
Library Media Teacher
Tehipite Middle School
Fresno, CA 93701
Web: http://www.tehipitelibrary.com 
Blog: http://notyourmotherslibrarian.blogspot.com 

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