Community Partnerships

Action Item: 

By 2023, the School Library Team will:

Summary

As part of the ISTE Course Exploring Future-Ready Librarianship: Practices for the Emerging Leader, both Kristine and Erin went through the process of learning to improve the intentionality and mutual benefit of our community partnerships. The goals and action steps that we create through this process will be based on desired outcomes of our library program. 

Step 1 will be to identify current or potential community partners that fit into one or more of the following categories: Volunteer partner, Funding partner, Industry partners, Project partner, Thought partner, Leadership partner 

Step 2 will be to identify and record our desired outcome(s) for our community partnership(s), and identify which of our current/potential partners would mutually benefit from this partnership. 

Step 3 will be to put together an action plan with/for our community partner(s) and follow through on our plan.

Results:

Please click this link to access our Community Partnerships Map, Desired Outcomes, and Action Plans

During the last 3 years, we have been able to enact all of our action plans to form successful partnerships.

Erin developed a Digital Citizenship Unit around cyberbullying to be used in the 6-8th grade health classes. The unit includes 4 lessons entitled: Is it Cyberbullying, Digital Drama Unplugged, The Power of Words, and What you Send in “That moment when…” These lessons are adapted from the Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship Curriculum for middle school students. They were adapted to meet the requirements of the Health class, and to fit within the alotted timeframe within the curriculum. These lessons all include an instructional video that Erin recorded, along with content from the original Common Sense Media lesson plans. These lessons have been used the past few years to engage students in thoughtful discussions and activities around their digital presence where cyberbullying and online interactions are concerned. 

The WSDLC Membership has proven to be an incredibly beneficial addition to the Lakewood School Library program. More data about its implementation can be found in the section entitled "Budget and Resources," but around one third of our current checkouts are digital resources based out of Sora. 

Digital access: Kristine has set up iPads in the library so that students are able to read ebooks, as well as listen to audiobooks and "read-along" books when they are visiting the library. Since use of Sora does require digital access, Erin and Kristine have worked to develop procedures so that young students are able to more easily login to their Sora accounts on iPads.

 Content access levels: We have also been in communication with the WSDLC to set up grade-level content permissions so that young students only have access to elementary-level books, and our older students have access to middle-grade books. This helps us ensure that our collection remains developmentally appropriate for our students.

Advantage collection: Erin has also worked to set up and allocate funds for our Advantage collection, which is a collection specific titles that the Lakewood School Library purchases for Sora. These titles are only accessible to Lakewood students. Many titles that are very popular are checked out by other students across the state, so Erin worked with the WSDLC staff, as well as Overdrive (company that hosts the Sora app) to set up an advantage account so that our students had more ready access to these popular titles.

During National Library Week, the Lakewood School Library collaborated with the Twin Lakes Community Library to get students and families signed up for public library cards. It was a huge success, and 20 families signed up for library cards.