Jennifer Dimmick is a library teacher at Newton South High School and Reba Tierney is a library teacher at Waltham High School
Over the course of the weekend of January 20, Reba Tierney and Jennifer Dimmick were fortunate enough to attend the annual ALA mid-winter conference in Atlanta as MSLA’s delegates to the AASL Affiliate Assembly for Region 1 (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont). While we were able to take in some interesting sessions and speakers as well as the ever popular vendor hall, our primary role was attending the Affiliate Assembly meetings which took place on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.
The Saturday meeting focused on the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and the tremendous opportunity this represents for school librarians to ensure that their state’s implementation of the law includes explicit reference to ensuring student access to effective school library programs. Affiliate Assembly members from across the country randomly divided into groups of roughly ten people to compare notes on what each state had accomplished so far in pursuing this goal. Some states had made more progress than others, and best practices were identified in each group and shared on flip charts. As soon as the Affiliate Assembly meeting minutes are released, we will share this with the MSLA membership. In Jennifer’s group, Illinois seemed to have accomplished a lot (check out their site about the ESSA process in Illinois here: http://www.islma.org/ESSA.htm). The consensus was that it is very important to get the word out to all members in the state to actively participate in the required state education departments listening forums. To be successful, state library association leadership should provide talking points to members planning to attend the forums, so that they can articulately advocate for equitable school library access as part of ESSA implementation. It is also important to include specific, personal stories and not just generic talking points. Once a state department of education has a draft plan, it is critical to review and provide feedback and push for changes when equitable school library access is not included in the draft, so that ensuing drafts are modified to include such explicit references.
Next up was school library super hero, Joyce Valenza, who spoke of the need to focus all of our work on the “why,” as articulated by Simon Sinek in his TED talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”
Next up was school library super hero, Joyce Valenza, who spoke of the need to focus all of our work on the “why,” as articulated by Simon Sinek in his TED talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”
As might be expected, it was an inspirational talk that got us all fired up to come back and lead with “why!” Again, if the slides get posted with the AASL meeting minutes, we’d be happy to post them.
Sunday’s meeting kicked off with an introduction to a variety of candidates for AASL/ALA’s upcoming elections. All of the candidates seemed well qualified and passionate about the prospect of serving AASL, which was inspiring. One takeaway that is important to emphasize is that we have 30 votes for ALA Council, so the more votes we give to school librarians, the better representation we will have within the larger ALA body. We heard from 7 AASL candidates for ALA Council, and we would recommend voting for all of them. You do not have to use all 30 of your votes, but we would encourage you to use as many as necessary to vote for all of the school librarian candidates. We will be reminding everyone to vote as the election draws closer.
Following that we had a variety of break-out sessions on topics such as Fake News, Reading for Pleasure, Student Privacy, Self-Censorship, and more. We rotated from group to group for brief, stimulating conversations and shared best practices.
Later we had a presentation of AASL Announcements and Updates by Audrey Church, AASL President. Her remarks covered an actions update on the 2016 Commendations and Concerns taken up by the body, a discussion of ESSA, a review of AASL Awards & Grants and strong encouragement to apply, task force updates, bylaws amendments, advocacy and legislation updates, standards updates, Future Ready Librarians, and the upcoming AASL conference in November in Phoenix, AZ. Lest we not go on too long, you can review the slides here: http://connect.ala.org/files/AASL%20Updates%20Midwinter%202017%20-%20Audrey%20Church.pdf
We rounded out the day by reconvening with our region to discuss possible commendations and concerns to raise to AASL for consideration during the annual conference in June. If you have any organization (nonprofit only) that you feel deserves a public commendation from AASL for their support of school libraries, please contact Reba or Jennifer with your suggestions. Similarly, if there are concerns that you feel AASL should be addressing with specific actions, please let us know. We are here to represent the concerns of Massachusetts school librarians and share them with AASL and ALA leadership as warranted.
Your faithful servants,
Jennifer Dimmick ([email protected] and Reba Tierney ([email protected])
Sunday’s meeting kicked off with an introduction to a variety of candidates for AASL/ALA’s upcoming elections. All of the candidates seemed well qualified and passionate about the prospect of serving AASL, which was inspiring. One takeaway that is important to emphasize is that we have 30 votes for ALA Council, so the more votes we give to school librarians, the better representation we will have within the larger ALA body. We heard from 7 AASL candidates for ALA Council, and we would recommend voting for all of them. You do not have to use all 30 of your votes, but we would encourage you to use as many as necessary to vote for all of the school librarian candidates. We will be reminding everyone to vote as the election draws closer.
Following that we had a variety of break-out sessions on topics such as Fake News, Reading for Pleasure, Student Privacy, Self-Censorship, and more. We rotated from group to group for brief, stimulating conversations and shared best practices.
Later we had a presentation of AASL Announcements and Updates by Audrey Church, AASL President. Her remarks covered an actions update on the 2016 Commendations and Concerns taken up by the body, a discussion of ESSA, a review of AASL Awards & Grants and strong encouragement to apply, task force updates, bylaws amendments, advocacy and legislation updates, standards updates, Future Ready Librarians, and the upcoming AASL conference in November in Phoenix, AZ. Lest we not go on too long, you can review the slides here: http://connect.ala.org/files/AASL%20Updates%20Midwinter%202017%20-%20Audrey%20Church.pdf
We rounded out the day by reconvening with our region to discuss possible commendations and concerns to raise to AASL for consideration during the annual conference in June. If you have any organization (nonprofit only) that you feel deserves a public commendation from AASL for their support of school libraries, please contact Reba or Jennifer with your suggestions. Similarly, if there are concerns that you feel AASL should be addressing with specific actions, please let us know. We are here to represent the concerns of Massachusetts school librarians and share them with AASL and ALA leadership as warranted.
Your faithful servants,
Jennifer Dimmick ([email protected] and Reba Tierney ([email protected])
