Deeth Ellis is the Head Librarian at Boston Latin School in Boston, MA, and a Doctoral Student, School of Library Science, Simmons University.

Introduction

As a doctoral student at Simmons University, my teachers and advisors stress the importance of choosing courses and  topics for assignments that will eventually guide you toward a dissertation topic.  One such assignment last year was a conceptual framework, or a visual representation of an information phenomenon underpinned by theory.

Jennifer Edwards is the Library Media Teacher at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School and a recipient of the 2021 Judi Paradis Action Grant.

The pandemic afforded an opportunity for the school library that, in a regular year,  would never have happened. In many schools the individual departments are somewhat isolated from each other. Teachers do work cooperatively with their own department colleagues, but libraries can have opportunities for inter-department co-teaching and cross-curriculum projects which help to promote the school library program and to connect patrons to resources.

In this new column, we're thrilled to feature a librarian new to the profession. We hope you enjoy this chance to meet someone at the start of their school library career!

1. What's your name, title and school?
Sarah Murphy, librarian at Kennedy Middle School in Natick.

2. How did you come to librarianship?
After spending time as a second grade classroom teacher and a middle school reading specialist, I realized my true passion was literacy and wanted to be able to share that with a whole school community and not just small groups of students.

3. How would you explain the importance of your role to a nonlibrarian?
Librarians do so much more than check out books. They have the power to reach all students, whether through the lens of books, providing a safe and inclusive space, and/or helping students tackle the task of making sense of the world around them. Libraries have the potential to be the heart of a school community and I find that both thrilling and a little daunting!

4. What are you working on right now?
I am working on learning this new job, developing curriculum, and getting to know students and staff at my new school.

5. What is going well?
I truly feel like I have landed in the exact right place for me. I am enjoying this work so much already and I have so many ideas for what I hope I can bring to the table. It has been a far easier transition than I anticipated.

6. What is the most challenging thing so far?
The newness of it all has been challenging. I am working on learning new systems, new people, and a new school system, as well as trying to be seen as a resource to other teachers, develop curriculum, and gain a rapport with as many students as I can. It is all very exciting but it has been a lot!

7.  What's the most unexpected thing about your new job?
I think the most unexpected thing for me has been just how happy I am in this role. I have cried happy tears more than once since I started and I don't think I knew how fulfilling a job could be. It also surprises me how fast the work day flies by. I am working on coming to terms with the fact that my to-do list may never be finished.

8. What are you reading or watching?
I'm reading The Pants Project by Cat Clarke. I'm listening to November 9 by Colleen Hoover and I am watching the LuLaRoe Documentary on Amazon.

9. What do you hope the MA School Library Association can do for you?
I am hoping the MSLA can help me stay current, connected, and inspired in this new role.

Hello Forum Readers, 

While working and living through a pandemic has been personally and professionally challenging for most everyone, Katherine and I felt it was important to strive for some constancy and support. Which is why we decided to publish the Forum on a regular schedule, even if we didn't have our usual number of articles. The articles that we do receive from our amazing contributors have been timely, valuable, and much appreciated. We hope you continue to find comfort and inspiration in the work of your colleagues, and value in the articles that we are able to publish.

Celebrating our wins seems more important than ever, and one win that I am pleased to announce is the debut of a new Forum column dedicated to Graphic Novels. I know you will enjoy Liza Halley's inaugural column. Liza is a Library Teacher at Plympton Elementary School in Waltham, MA, and has been an avid reader of graphic novels ever since she began reading Jeff Smith’s Bone and Kazu Kihushi’s Amulet series with her eldest son over 14 years ago. She reads every graphic novel for K-6th grader she can get her hands on (and is a big fan of Monstress, Hellboy, and Saga for adults). Liza began teaching PD around how to incorporate graphic novels into the classroom five years ago. She helped plan the panelists and organize the day of the San Diego Public Library’s concurrent teacher librarian Con during the 2018 San Diego ComicCon. She also helped plan the first and second annual Boston Kids Comic Fest (2018 & 2019) a free, kid-friendly comic festival filled with panelists, vendors, workshops and headliners. Welcome Liza!  https://bostonkidscomicsfest.org/

And now, on a more bittersweet note, this Spring Forum is the last edition for the indubitably fabulous editor, Katherine Steiger. It has been a privilege and a joy to work with such a dedicated professional, and wonderful human being. Katherine took me under her wing when I came on board as a co-editor, and showed infinite patience as I learned the ropes of the Forum. (Which honestly...I'm still not sure I've got everything down. Thankfully, I know how to find Katherine!) We will miss her so much, but I am confident I can convince her to be a guest contributor every now and then. So, Katherine, I know I speak for all of MSLA when I extend heartfelt thanks and gratitude for all of your service. You will be missed!  

Happy reading my Library Friends! Reba Tierney  

Liza Halley is the Library Teacher at Plympton Elementary School in Waltham, MA.

In March, I was sitting on the front porch of a friend’s house, about ready to begin the Passover seder. We had a stack of all different kinds of Haggadot - books we use for readings, prayers, and images to go along with the Seder - when a fellow adult seder attendee grabbed Jordan Gorfinkel and Erez Zadok’s beautiful Passover Haggadah Graphic Novel saying, “I’ll take this one. I never learned to read anyway.” 

Little did my new friend know, he was sitting next to a librarian who has made it her special mission to disabuse teachers, parents, administration, and students of this very notion: sequential stories - graphic novels, comics, graphic nonfiction - are really books that you read, and your brain is doing a ton of work while you read them.  They are for all readers.

Libraries are my (very beloved) second career, and it has been a peripatetic route to get here. To make a convoluted story shorter, with my MLIS I was able to qualify for a provisional Library Media Specialist certificate, but needed to complete a teacher prep program to meet the DESE requirements to move up to my initial LMS K-12 certification. 

So, although I have four years working as an elementary LMS, I still needed to enroll in an official School Library Teacher program. I chose Simmons, where I needed to complete a series of courses, in addition to a secondary-level practicum. Lucky for me, Diane McKamy, North Attleborough High School (NAHS) librarian extraordinaire, was willing to take me on as a student teacher this semester.​

While reviewing the practicum requirements, I immediately focused on what Simmons calls the Major Project, a unit with a minimum of four lessons. Brainstorming a bit, I considered what would be most practical for our current learning situation. With North Attleborough Public Schools, along with many others, in hybrid or remote learning modes, it made sense to me to figure out how students could still access reading materials, regardless of their location.

Valerie Diggs is a former President of MSLA and currently works as a Senior Visiting Instructor at Salem State University, where she also serves as the Graduate Program Coordinator of the MEd Library Media Studies program. 

Jennifer St. Michel is the Library Media Specialist at the Dr. Kevin M. Hurley Middle School in Seekonk, MA.

Being a school librarian means wearing many hats. We manage our libraries, create engaging learning opportunities for our students, curate high quality resources for our teachers, and promote the ethical and appropriate use of technology. Our services have been primarily offered to our teachers, students, and administrators. When the pandemic became widespread in March 2020, my school quickly pivoted from a traditional face to face delivery model to a fully online curriculum. With this change in delivery, I found a new hat to wear:  a new audience in need of assistance - parents.

Margaret Kane Schoen is a Library Teacher at Newton South High School
and a winner of a 2020 Super Librarian Award.

Michael Caligiuri is the school librarian at the Florence Sawyer School in Bolton, and a recipient of a 2020 MSLA Super Librarian Award.

Alphabet books have been around for a long time. The first hornbooks designed to teach students the alphabet can be traced back to the 15th century. Alphabet books have come a long way since, “In Adam’s Fall/we sinned all.” I teach in a K-8 school where, in normal times, kids attend a library class once a week. Of all the alphabet books on my shelves, there are a few I read with classes every year and they never get old. They are among my most engaging read alouds.

Anita Cellucci is the Library Teacher at Westborough High School and K-12 Department Head for Libraries at WPS,
and a 2020 recipient of the Peggy Hallisey Lifetime Achievement award.
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Michelle Raszl is the Librarian at Mt Everett Regional School (6-12) in Sheffield, MA (Berkshire County).

"As you start to walk out on the way, the way appears." - Rumi 

Our small, rural, predominantly white school district in Western Massachusetts has its share of racist and homophobic incidents. And like many other educators, I took these on headfirst, trying to find some common moral ground with students, trying to appeal to their humanity before referring them to the Dean. And then Covid happened. And our ongoing social uprising. For summer enrichment I organized a Community Read of Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi and the remix Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You by Jason Reynolds. Concurrently, I was approached by a couple of students who were disgusted by the injustices that they had been seeing perpetrated across our country and dismayed by curricula that neglected to represent the full scope of American perspectives.

Why Do Schools Need Social Emotional Learning (SEL)?

Struggling with a global pandemic, an economic recession, and racial injustices and disparities, today’s students and teachers face overwhelming fears and anxieties that negatively influence mental health and learning (CASEL, 2020; Cipriano, Rappolt-Schlichtmann, & Brackett, 2020; Shafer, 2020). Consequently, “the compounding traumas of this crisis call for schools to rethink what it means to educate the whole child and invest deeply in SEL” (Cipriano, Rappolt-Schlichtmann, & Brackett, 2020, p.6). 
​

Dr. Georgina Trebbe is the Information Specialist/Librarian at the Minnechaug Regional High School.

Whether engaged in full or hybrid online teaching and learning, Massachusetts school districts pivoted to emergency online learning during COVID-19. Emergency online teaching and learning required all-hands-on-deck. The emergency nature of online teaching and learning lead to the challenging of traditional educational practices and perceptions as educators needed to determine what works. During COVID-19 school library teachers were especially challenged with threatened position cuts and reassignments (Witteveen, 2020). Through these challenges, school library teachers creatively determined safe methods for providing traditional services, utilized their technology expertise for instructing K-12 educators and students how to use and apply new online tools (AASL, 2020; Witteveen, 2020).

Laura Harrington is the Library Media Specialist at North Andover High School, and a recipient of a 2020 MSLA Super Librarian Award.