Tag Archives: Staffing

Academic, Check this out:, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Special

Self-Advocacy (Advocacy Series #4)

advocacy
You are valuable – advocate for yourself!!

In this series we have spent a lot of time focused on libraries and how we can advocate for our libraries and our profession. Of course this is important, and if you have not told someone today about a great thing your library does – get on that!

We also need to talk about advocating for ourselves! As library people, we need to advocate for our specific jobs, and we need to advocate for ourselves to move into other jobs, to be taken seriously, and to do the good things we want to do in the library. (You can also advocate for yourself outside of the library; but here we will focus on self-advocacy in the workplace.)

Where do we start? Think about your job now. Do you like it? This is a serious question. Too many people are stuck in jobs they don’t like, or jobs that don’t speak to their skills and professional interests. Sometimes there is nothing to do about that, and then you either decide to just grit your teeth and do it (develop some good outside hobbies!), or you start looking around for another job.

Let’s assume that we are somewhere different, that we are in a job that may not really connect with the things we know we can do professionally, or that we can not see with a strong potential for growth and promotion. It’s not bad enough to leave it, but things could be better.

This is where self-advocacy can really come in handy! Continue reading Self-Advocacy (Advocacy Series #4) →

Check this out:, General, Training

How do you get a job?? (Hiring Series #6)

hiring
It’s so hard for everyone!

It’s a perpetual problem: Employers complain there are no good candidates applying for their jobs, and job hunters complain there are no good jobs.

Job hunting is just hard. Sorry. There are not going to be any easy strategies here, because they do not exist!

Don’t panic! We do have some suggestions from CMLE on ways you can get started looking for a job, and how to get through the hunt.

For our purposes, I are assuming you want to work in a library, or a library-adjacent job: archive, museum, etc. First: who would want to work anywhere else?? Second: you are part of a pretty specialized audience, reading a library system’s material. So I am just going to talk about libraries here; but if you know someone else who is job hunting in another area (gasp!), the advice will probably carry over to them. Continue reading How do you get a job?? (Hiring Series #6) →

Check this out:, CMLE, General, Resources, Services, Training

Recruiting to hire good people (Hiring Series #3)

hiring
We need to get them to us before we can hire great employees!

Part of hiring great people is making sure that they are applying to your library! Without a pool of good candidates, you can’t make good people appear.

How do you get these good people? Like so many things: you need a plan. A solid recruiting plan will help you to bring in the good applicants, and give you the best kind of hard choice to make when hiring – picking among people who would all be good in your library.

It sounds hard. Where will you get the time? How will you know if it is working? What kinds of decisions should you be making?

CMLE is here to help you! We will walk through the basic steps of creating a plan here, so you can start working on your own plan for your library. Then, we are here to work with members to finalize their plans, to make decisions, and to help with the evaluation. Continue reading Recruiting to hire good people (Hiring Series #3) →

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

We've Learned: Job opening

LightbulbWe’ve Learned… is designed to keep our readers informed about news concerning personnel in CMLE libraries/media centers. Please keep us informed of any “happenings” regarding staff members in your area so that we can include them in the next write-up! Happenings can include: changes in staffing, job openings, awards, honors… you get the idea! Updates can be sent to admin@cmle.org

Holdingford Public Schools
Independent School District #738
P.O. Box 250
Holdingford, MN 56340
Personnel Vacancy
June 13, 2016

POSTING: Technology Integration—Media Specialist—Gifted & Talented Instructor
1.0 FTE beginning the 2016-2017 school year.

JOB DUTIES:
Works cooperatively and collaboratively with Building Administrators, District Technology Director, IT staff, media staff, clerical staff, and others to provide outstanding technology integration support to staff and students.

1. Inspire and participate in the development and implementation of a shared vision for the comprehensive integration of technology to promote excellence and support transformational change throughout the instructional environment.
2. Assist teachers in embedding technology into instruction for assessing student learning, differentiating instruction, and providing rigorous, relevant, and engaging learning experiences for all students.
3. Create and support effective digital age learning environments to maximize the learning of all students.
4. Conduct needs assessments, develop technology-related professional learning programs, and evaluate the impact on instructional practice and student learning.
5. Model and promote digital citizenship.
6. Support and promote literacy.
7. Manage media center budget.
8. Supervise media center staff, volunteers and student workers.
9. Provide Instruction in Elementary Gifted & Talented Program.
10. Other duties as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS:
• Must hold a valid Minnesota teaching license.
• Demonstrated experience supporting teachers and students in effective use of instructional technology.
• Experience managing a School Media Center preferred.
• Experience working with gifted students preferred.

Application Deadline: June 29
Submit letter of application and resume to:
Chris Swenson
Holdingford Public School
PO Box 250
Holdingford, MN 56340
FMLA regulations require all employers to post the updated FMLA notice.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
Committed to Workforce Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Holdingford Public Schools, District 738 does not discriminate on the basis
of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age in its programs and activities and provides equal access to youth group

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist

Where have the media specialists gone?

Editors note: This post could be the last in this annual series. Why? As sometimes happens, what is happening in the field can get ahead of the state education department, and the way that data is collected. From our work in the field, we witness an increase in the number of school media specialists being reassigned to new titles and new duties.  Tech Integrationist or Digital Resource Specialist, Guide, or Coach are some of the assigned titles. It is unclear to us at CMLE how personnel in 265 schools are being reported to MDE; questioning the validity of our data set.

Q is for Question MarkCould you hear us crunching the data? This is the sixth year that CMLE has been pulling the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) data and studying the slow decline of school library media specialists in our CMLE twelve-county region. Sharing the data is (was) the logical thing to do, but CMLE has found little appetite from the field in addressing this issue. Even those in the field feel unable to propose ideas, and the perennial question is: Whose problem is this to solve? CMLE can serve as a voice for school media centers, but has no authority or power to correct this lack of high quality staffing.

It stands to reason that if there is inadequate media specialist staffing in high schools, students may not be prepared with the skills they need to be successful in college. Will middle schoolers be prepared to do high school work, and when students have no library program at school, are they simply going to the public library for assistance? Are the public libraries funded or staffed to absorb this work on a large scale? Everyone is stretched for resources, so it is critical that K-12, public, and academic libraries all step up to do their part. Do school superintendents understand this? It amazes me that the public and academic libraries don’t push back when they are forced to pick up the additional weight as a result of this dodged responsibility. Is this fair, is this right?

Without further ado, here is data for Aitkin, Benton, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Pine, Sherburne, Stearns, Todd and Wright counties in MN. In a nutshell, …..

  • 97 individual schools (45%) in Central MN have no licensed media specialist. This compares with 90 in 2015, 79 individual schools in 2014, 53 in 2013, and 48 in 2012.
  • 52% of the schools without a media specialist are middle, secondary, or high schools. A whopping 76% of secondary schools are functioning without licensed staff!
  • 47 elementary schools have no media specialist (compared to 43 last year, 38 in 2014 and 28 in 2013), yet as far as I know, we are still focused statewide on demonstrating reading proficiency by 3rd grade!
  • 18 out of 52 districts (35%) have no media specialist in any school in the district. This compares to 16 in 2014 & 2015, 14 in 2013, and 9 in 2012!
  • Is there any good news? Yes. The great news is that 35% of CMLE schools still have a full time media specialist, a number which is holding. Schools with a full-blown school media program appear to value it, and see the need.

According to public 2015-2016 MDE data, here are the CMLE school districts with no licensed media specialists in any school: Aitkin, Annandale, Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa, Bertha Hewitt, Braham, Browerville, Eagle Valley, East Central, Foley, Hinckley-Finlayson, Kimball, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle, Maple Lake, McGregor, Royalton, Staples-Motley, Swanville, and Willow River. Are parents in these districts aware of this issue?

New to the list this year are shown in orange. Congratulations to Onamia, who graduated off this list!

In the past, CMLE used this data in its advocacy work, in targeting its programming, and in working statewide to bring attention to this growing problem.  All Minnesota students deserve a high quality, K-12 academic experience that prepares them for the next step in their life. We need students to be able to proficiently use the research process and to think critically about competing sources of information. These are key lifelong skills needed by all high-functioning members of society.

Patricia Post
CMLE Executive Director

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/mklc22b, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0