Category Archives: School Media Specialist

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!

Kathy Popp CMLE Extended Mini Grant Report

kids testing the floor chairs
kids testing the floor chairs

This is a guest post from Kathy Popp, Elementary Media Center Para at Royalton Elementary School.

Thank you, Thank you, CMLE for the $1,000 grant. With the grant I was able to purchase child friendly seating for the Media Center.

I purchased bean bag chairs and grab & go chairs. Both will be easy to clean and store. The seating came just as I was wrapping up the last week of “I Love to Read” month.

The students are so excited to be able to have some unique seating to place around the Media Center while they are reading. It is so nice to have something besides adult chairs for the students to use.

The past few years more classrooms are giving students the opportunity to try different seating and now I can offer options in the Media Center also! This seating will last for years! 

Thank you again. Kathy Popp, Media Center Para at Royalton Elementary School. 

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!

Sara Martini Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Sara Martini, Media Specialist at Westwood Elementary in St. Cloud.

Last spring, I was given a grant by CMLE to spend $1,000.00 to purchase books to increase the diversity in our PAKRAT (Partners and Kids Reading Alot Together) program at Westwood Elementary School in St. Cloud. 

This grant was so exciting to receive, and I was able to purchase 160 new books in which every student in our school can see themselves represented in the books they can pick out to take home to share with their families. 

Our families at Westwood have read almost 8,000 books this school year as part of our PAKRAT program! In fact, one student told me that her mom told her to thank me for having so many girls wearing hijabs in the books we were sending home.  Representation matters!  Thank you so much!

AASL Top Digital Tools 2021: News Literacy Project

AASL released its list of Best Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning 2021! This year’s list took into special consideration how well these tools work for remote/distance students. The resources enhance learning and encourage the following qualities:

  • Innovation/Creativity
  • Active Participation
  • Collaboration
  • User-Friendly
  • Encourages Exploration
  • Information/Reference

We share these resources every year and you can explore our archive of past recommendations here.

News literacy and being able to spot misinformation are vital skills for students, and the News Literacy Project is taking on the challenge.

News Literacy Project “is a nonpartisan national education nonprofit, provides programs and resources for educators and the public to teach, learn and share the abilities needed to be smart, active consumers of news and information and equal and engaged participants in a democracy.”

Grades K-12

The News Literacy Project has this page for educators on their site which features an online learning platform, professional development opportunities, and materials to use in the classroom. The project also creates many additional resources useful for the classroom and some of them are included in this guide from Common Sense Education. And the News Literacy Project is mentioned in this helpful LibGuide aimed at teachers.

This 4-min video discusses the beginning of the News Literacy Project and its goals for helping students and educators: