Leadership

When I first became a librarian, I did not realize that I would be leading professional development.  It has quickly become one of my favorite (and also sometimes frustrating) parts of my job.  Teaching is in my blood; as an innovative educator, I can apply the same style of teaching, my interactive, energetic, positive, hands-on, and full-of-the-4C's style, to teaching with adults.  Teachers and students do not need someone to lecture them; they need to experience things with experts to guide and learn alongside them. Through leading professional development (or learning), I can affect change in my school which speaks to my teacher soul. Using technology to improve instruction and learning, moving to a balanced assessment tool, embracing a learning management system, encouraging literacy and high quality research, or exposing options for interesting project-based-learning products are all ways I have led in my schools and county. I am proud that our TGIF team consisting of instructional coaches, librarians, the intervention coordinator, and the CTE IMC has led professional learning that assisted our teachers through the pandemic and back into the classroom; we won the Learning Innovation Award from NCTIES in 2022.

Click on the picture above to visit our Library Media Studies webpage or check out our fall semester master course on Canvas. Students in LMS lead in the library in an internship style environment, yet they also conduct action research, learn to use multiple tech tools and resources, and apply their research/skills to a PBL event.  In the fall, students will plan and run Computer Science Week while students in spring semester plan and run our Literacy Week. We love our LMS students for so many reasons; it gives us a chance to form close relationships with students in an intimate class environment, yet it also allows students to be leaders in our school, promoting literacy and technology skills. We truly could not run the LC without our student leaders.  Jennifer and I also rewrote the Library Media Studies curriculum for the county in 2021.

In the last few years, libraries have faced an unprecedented number of book challenges and censorship attempts.  I am thankful to work in a district with strong policies and central office support.  The foundation of the Library profession is defending intellectual freedom; it is the third policy in the ALA's Library Bill of Rights.  For librarians, it is essential that we curate a collection that serves all of our patrons; it is in fact the law, something I researched for our FREADOM Literacy Week. Librarians are being demonized for fulfilling this duty and many are afraid of losing their jobs or even being sent to jail. I have spoken at board meetings, given trainings on censorship (1st, 2nd), taught students about their rights, informed librarians about censorship news, represented at the NCAE RA proposing an anti-censorship New Business Item, and even spoken to the media. Most importantly, I continue to show visible support in my own school library, partnering with organizations like our school GSA, Equity Team, the NCAE GSEA, and the NEA LGBTQ+ Caucus where I currently am the Zone 2 Leader. Speaking out is scary but essential.  If the only voices our politicians and school board hear are those who are extremists, they will begin to form policies that serve the few and exclude the many as our politicians have begun passing such bad legislation.  Librarians are the defenders of intellectual freedom, and we are at war.