May 20 update

End of Year Celebration

Remember to contribute to our End of Year Slide Deck today.

We will share it at our Happy Hour this afternoon, May 20, 3:00ish-4:00ish. Totally casual, if you can make it, even for 5 minutes just to say hi, awesome! If you can't - have a wonderful summer! I hope you get to relax and rejuvenate.

Check your calendar invite for the Meet url.

5 Phases

Watch a video or read the transcript of the May 15 Let's Talk, episode 7 - the one where Dr Anderson and Dr Crespo discuss the 5-phase COVID-19 Reintroduction Model.

Consider what each phase could look like in the library. We will talk about it in August.

Library Websites

It would be a really great idea to make sure your library websites are up to date with links and such. BVSD will be pointing students to your sites over the summer as a place to find stuff to do if they finish the activity menus we just put together. Some of the freebies you added in March might be expiring soon. Also, be sure to check for the appropriateness of game sites - too many ads? too difficult to get to the game? does it collect PII? does it require in-app purchases? etc.

If you've got some good click-through tools, be sure to add them to the district list. Go to the Digital Tools and Resources page and read the Click-Through portion. Then fill out the form.

Self-paced summer activities for elementary and secondary have been published. You could add a link to them on your library website as well.

Public Library summer reading

These programs start next week and most require registration to participate. Here are the links again:

• Broomfield Public Library
• Boulder Public Library
• Erie Public Library
• Lafayette Public Library
• Louisville Public Library

In other news

• My proposal for databases as a district library line item was denied. BVSD is expecting a large deficit in the budget for the next school year, and likely for several years, as a side-effect of COVID-19 pandemic management efforts. I will continue to lobby for it as the district looks at updating the social studies and science curriculum in the near future.
• Language Arts Secondary Materials Adoption committee has decided to contract with Turn It In and MackinVia. These platforms will dovetail nicely with social studies and science when those curricula get revised. Sora will remain a supplemental source for reading. This proposal is going to the Board tonight. Be prepared next year to teach staff and students how to use the Insignia Library Catalog to search for resources in both places. Insignia will be the centralized means of finding titles. IT will maintain SSO tiles for both Sora and MackinVia if folks want to access resources directly through those platforms.
• Book Share accounts at each school - I spoke with Dennis Rastatter, Executive Director of Special Education, about asking teacher librarians at each building to create a Book Share account to accommodate students with reading barriers. He is in full agreement that TLs are competent authorities to evaluate if a student requires the audio version of a title. With Book Share, TLs can assign to those students an audio version of class assigned titles. We will be discussing this further in August, but it would be helpful to create your account and familiarize yourself with the program.
• TL roster changes next year
  • At least 3 TL's have been cut to part time
  • 4 TL's are retiring this year
  • 2 TL's are moving on
  • 5 new TL's next year
  • See the slide show for details