Tag Archives: media specialist

Onamia Elementary School CMLE Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Kim Colvin, Media Specialist at Onamia Elementary School.

The grant that Onamia Elementary School received from Central Minnesota Library Exchange helped the library in many ways. The books that we purchased were books that students and teachers requested to help grow the library. 

Thank you so much for helping me get new books into my students’ hands. They are so excited to read all these great books and want to read more books because of it, and are becoming more open to different types of books.

This is really helping the students become better readers because they want to read these books and explore all the new books we received. Some new skills the students are learning with these books are their ability to read and to enjoy reading. It’s not just something they have to do in school.

Students are learning about different genres of books and what types of books they enjoy. Many students developed a spark for different books that they never would have read if it weren’t for this grant.

We did speed dating with the new books so they could see what they were about and get them interested in other books. This opened many students’ eyes to different types of books and got them hooked. Many students were begging to read the book beyond the 10 minutes, or not to go to the next book.

I personally ordered a couple more copies of some books because so many students wanted to read them. The books that many students related to had characters struggling with tough issues. It was an instant connection to their life. 

Students are enjoying these new books! The ones that are really enjoying them are the ones that don’t want to read the traditional type of books or the ones that don’t think reading is fun and interesting. These books are reaching the students that are struggling to read or that don’t really like to read.

Hopefully, the books from the grant will help students see there’s such a variety of great books out there! We appreciate the books that we could get through this grant and the students are loving the different types of books and the new desire to read that it sparked!

This grant expanded the library with books and got many students at Onamia Elementary School excited to read! Thanks so much from everyone at Onamia Elementary School!

Fieldstone and St. Michael Elementary CMLE Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Kristina Kampa, Media Specialist at Fieldstone Elementary and St. Michael Elementary.

I have seen this grant application before, but never thought to apply. My thoughts were it would be too much work since I have never applied for a grant before, I don’t have time, I would never get it, the list goes on. 

I saw the information in the CMLE Newsletter this fall and I figured I would apply this year because we were not given any funds to purchase books other than the money we raised from our book fairs.

So this was the year I was going to sit down and fill this application out for the two elementary media centers I work in. The Google Form for the grant was very simple to fill out.  When I received the email back saying that both of my schools I work in were awarded the grant, I was beyond excited.

I work at two different elementary schools in my district and they both have areas in the collection that need updating, but funds have kept the updating limited. 

I started weeding the non fiction section in one of my schools last year, but realized I couldn’t weed all of the books my report suggested because I didn’t have funds to order new ones.

Our sports team section was in desperate need of more current updated books and I was able to purchase a whole new collection of football books from this grant. I was also able to purchase a few new graphic novels as well which we never can keep on the shelves! 

My other school desperately needed updated picture books for the students and teachers to have for read alouds. With this grant, I was able to place an order for over 50 new picture books

The students have been eagerly waiting for these books to arrive and to read them. I am very thankful for this grant and how it allowed me to purchase new and current books for my students and staff at both schools. Thank you CMLE for helping me update our collections this year! 

Ruth Johnson CMLE Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post by Ruth Johnson, Media Specialist at Clearview Elementary.

With sincere gratitude, I am happy to report on the significance of the $565 grant that our Clearview Elementary Media Center received from your organization.  Your grant was used to support an important need in our school’s library.

Clearview hosts our district’s Spanish immersion program for students in K-5.  In addition, our school has traditional classrooms where neighborhood children attend for instruction in English. 

As a result, our school library has to essentially be “two libraries in one”.  With tighter funding through the years, it has been a challenge to keep both collections updated and growing in current reading material.  

In many ways, most of our collection growth came about by hosting Scholastic Book Fairs and using the proceeds to purchase books.  While we are very thankful for this opportunity, the book selections are limited, especially in getting Spanish literature that is genuine and not just a translation of English titles.

So, when awarded your grant, we focused on buying books that would help grow our Spanish collection.  Our school is comprised of 17 classrooms and 12 of these are Spanish immersion, so our need was to add many more book choices and copies to the Spanish side of our library.

Working with a book company that has special pricing for districts with higher poverty levels, we were able to order 140 books with the grant award covering almost all of the cost!  I think this is a huge return on your money, as it averages to be less than $4 per book!  Who would ever expect to get that many books for $565?  

Now what will those books do?  They will delight our students who each check out from 1-2 Spanish books per week!  Having new literature to choose from is such a treat!

I sincerely thank you for this opportunity to expand our book collection at Clearview!  Please know that your organization and its mission are much appreciated!

Kari Green Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Kari Green, Media Specialist at Monticello Middle and High Schools.

The Monticello High School library has been sorely neglected for years after the library media specialist position was eliminated. Even though it is a newly remodeled space, the full-time paraprofessional has no library training and is employed under the IT department; checking out books is a courtesy rather than a job requirement. My (nearly) full-time library media specialist position at Monticello Middle School has slowly evolved to meet different needs. Because of this, I am teaching fewer media classes and have more availability to act as a “consultant” to the high school for a couple of hours per week. 

When I began to look at the foundational pieces of the library, I discovered that the library catalog had been completely deleted after the last inventory. There were 1,700 missing books, and utter disarray of policies and procedures.

Once I got a handle on the foundational tasks, I began looking at collection development needs. You can imagine what I found! Huge swaths of essential reading were either lost, missing, or never purchased. 

I turned to my Follett representative and asked for a list of “core” high school purchases – the type of purchases districts make when building a library from scratch. The list that was sent contained $169,000 worth of titles that are not available in the high school library. Wowza!

From this list, I selected the 51 most popular titles. These ranged from essential classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird and the Outsiders to newer titles such as Seraphina and Before the Ever After. My goal was to create a solid foundation to (hopefully) built upon in future years. 

Since the yearly budget is $1,500, the grant from Central Minnesota Library Exchange is a significant boost. With the help of the grant, the collection is moving in the right direction. Monticello Schools is grateful for the support! Thank you!

Scott Eskro Extended CMLE Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Scott Eskro, Media Specialist at Elk River High School. Read more about our Extended Mini Grant Program. This program was only available during the FY21 school year.

In the 2020 – 2021 school year, Elk River High School had a student population of around 1500. Like all schools, that number fluctuated in terms of students in school and students in distant learning situations.

But no matter where the students were, everyone was dealing with the stress and strain of living in a pandemic. Some believe we are on the verge of a social emotional crisis which further impacts the mental health of teens. The pandemic has exacerbated this issue and every school in the country has seen a huge impact on the mental health of their student population.

So we were looking to add contemporary fiction and memoirs that deal with the topic of mental health.

In the classrooms, English teachers have projects where students read contemporary fiction and memoirs. Students examine what the author is trying to address and/or affirm about a problem or issue in society. What issues, concerns or struggles do the characters face? How does the author address the issue and are the characters successful at tackling the issue?

We already had some books on a variety of contemporary issues. However, we were lacking books on the issue of mental illness and were hoping to add books in that area. 

Mental health is an extensive field. We were trying to improve our collection in two areas in particular.

We were looking to add books that look at the role gender plays in mental illness – examining the role that gender identity has on mental health. We were also hoping to buy memoirs and books on the topic of PTSD. Students are very interested in that topic and we have a significant portion of our student population that join the military. 

With this grant from CMLE, we were able to buy over 80 books dealing with a variety of mental health issues. Thank you CMLE for helping our students learn and tackle these issues through literature.

We will use three sets of data to examine success. First, we will look at checkout data on the books. Second, we will be giving the students a Google Form to fill out, gathering their thoughts about the book, and their understanding of the mental health issue. Third, the teacher will be examining the papers the students write.

Thank you once again, CMLE for helping us support our students and community through this grant.