Rachel Bouhanda is a Librarian at Billerica Memorial High School in Billerica, MA
and a winner of the 2016 Super-Librarian award
and a winner of the 2016 Super-Librarian award
In June of last school year 2014-2015, I was asked to join the planning team for a new endeavor called the Northeast Professional Educators Network (NPEN). NPEN is a multi-district organization that was formed to fill the need for high-quality professional development programs. The program focus is on low-incidence educators - PE/Health, Library, Technology Teachers, and Visual and Performing Arts. I wasn’t sure what to expect but, this sounded like a great opportunity. The first meeting I attended was held at the Merrimack Education Center in Topsfield. The day was spent brainstorming ideas for a professional development day to be given for other educators. In the morning I was the only Librarian and worked on the planning team with Technology teachers.
NPEN works to create professional development programs for teachers who work small departments or special interest, not only in their school, but also quite often district-wide. In Billerica Public Schools, I am fortunate to be able to collaborate with five other amazing school Librarians. We have the opportunity to meet a few times a year as a Professional Learning Community. This is not the case in many districts. Quite often the role of school librarian is filled by one person for the entire district. As a result, the librarian’s professional development opportunities are in programs that target areas such as technology or the humanities. It is, of course, valuable to interface with these other areas; however the specific needs of the library program can be marginalized.
In August of 2015, I stepped into the role as Librarian coordinator for NPEN Fall Conference. I had the opportunity to meet with administrators from other districts, as well as the coordinators for technology, arts, and PE/Health. In addition we were joined by representatives of the Crest, Valley, and Seem Collaborative. We continued to meet over the course of several Fridays at the beginning of the school year to flesh out a program that would target the needs of our respective disciplines.
With the assistance of school administrators, we were able to identify colleagues with shared interests who would help us plan our program. I had the opportunity to work with Mary Eldringhoff; from Tewksbury Memorial High School (TMHS) and Kim Smith Brown from North Reading High School. Although we had only one day to work together, we were able to accomplish a great deal by e-mail. We put together a plan to contact possible presenters for the conference, quickly realizing that the National School Library Association Conference was scheduled to take place shortly after our event.
The elements of the program we put together included three sessions and a networking opportunity before lunch, and three workshop sessions in the afternoon. We reached out to other school and public librarians for suggestions and were able to put together a great program. Some of the workshops included Book BFFs, SMART Goals, Finals Study Night, What’s new with Follett, and Quid Pro Quo: One Good Turn Deserves Another. We were able to attract a few vendors – Follett, The Junior Library Guild, and The Massachusetts Library System (MLS), Salem Press, Rosen, Davidson, and Cavendish Square. Tables were made available for their use in the area outside of the library. In addition the Follett representatives offered a workshop to introduce their new programs and software and sponsorship for a part of the library and technology program.
The First Annual NPEN Fall Extravaganza for Librarians was held at Tewksbury Memorial High School’s (TMHS) Larrabee Library, and was attended by thirty-five librarians from districts all over the state. The Larrabee Library is in a brand new building so it was a great opportunity to experience this wonderful facility. Mary Eldinghoff, the Librarian at TMHS, and her students played a huge role in preparing the space for the day. Three of the students also presented one of the workshops. They not only introduced the participants to Mary’s amazing student library internship program, but facilitated a meaningful discussion on student use of the library.
Following the morning workshops the librarians broke into discussion groups. The groups were based on grade levels; however there was also an opportunity to participate in group discussions that included both elementary and secondary librarians. Each group was provided with guidelines and several topic suggestions. Since we rarely have an opportunity to network and exchange ideas in person, we felt that this was a valuable part of the program. The personal and on-line feedback we received would seem to indicate that most of the participants agree. We will be incorporating this session into future programs for NPEN.
The event hosted by Tewksbury Memorial High School provided a professional development opportunity for Library, Technology, Health, and Science teachers. There were approximately 500 educators in attendance. In addition Billerica Memorial High School, Parker Elementary, Crest Collaborative, Valley Collaborative, and Seem Collaborative, hosted another group of 300 plus educators. The events for the day were a great success, and obviously much needed as indicated by the number of districts and educators that registered for the conference. I thoroughly enjoyed the small role that I played in the program, and I look forward to the planning sessions for next school year’s conference November 8th 2016. For more information on NPEN please visit the website http://northeastpen.com/ or follow on Twitter @NPENPD.
In August of 2015, I stepped into the role as Librarian coordinator for NPEN Fall Conference. I had the opportunity to meet with administrators from other districts, as well as the coordinators for technology, arts, and PE/Health. In addition we were joined by representatives of the Crest, Valley, and Seem Collaborative. We continued to meet over the course of several Fridays at the beginning of the school year to flesh out a program that would target the needs of our respective disciplines.
With the assistance of school administrators, we were able to identify colleagues with shared interests who would help us plan our program. I had the opportunity to work with Mary Eldringhoff; from Tewksbury Memorial High School (TMHS) and Kim Smith Brown from North Reading High School. Although we had only one day to work together, we were able to accomplish a great deal by e-mail. We put together a plan to contact possible presenters for the conference, quickly realizing that the National School Library Association Conference was scheduled to take place shortly after our event.
The elements of the program we put together included three sessions and a networking opportunity before lunch, and three workshop sessions in the afternoon. We reached out to other school and public librarians for suggestions and were able to put together a great program. Some of the workshops included Book BFFs, SMART Goals, Finals Study Night, What’s new with Follett, and Quid Pro Quo: One Good Turn Deserves Another. We were able to attract a few vendors – Follett, The Junior Library Guild, and The Massachusetts Library System (MLS), Salem Press, Rosen, Davidson, and Cavendish Square. Tables were made available for their use in the area outside of the library. In addition the Follett representatives offered a workshop to introduce their new programs and software and sponsorship for a part of the library and technology program.
The First Annual NPEN Fall Extravaganza for Librarians was held at Tewksbury Memorial High School’s (TMHS) Larrabee Library, and was attended by thirty-five librarians from districts all over the state. The Larrabee Library is in a brand new building so it was a great opportunity to experience this wonderful facility. Mary Eldinghoff, the Librarian at TMHS, and her students played a huge role in preparing the space for the day. Three of the students also presented one of the workshops. They not only introduced the participants to Mary’s amazing student library internship program, but facilitated a meaningful discussion on student use of the library.
Following the morning workshops the librarians broke into discussion groups. The groups were based on grade levels; however there was also an opportunity to participate in group discussions that included both elementary and secondary librarians. Each group was provided with guidelines and several topic suggestions. Since we rarely have an opportunity to network and exchange ideas in person, we felt that this was a valuable part of the program. The personal and on-line feedback we received would seem to indicate that most of the participants agree. We will be incorporating this session into future programs for NPEN.
The event hosted by Tewksbury Memorial High School provided a professional development opportunity for Library, Technology, Health, and Science teachers. There were approximately 500 educators in attendance. In addition Billerica Memorial High School, Parker Elementary, Crest Collaborative, Valley Collaborative, and Seem Collaborative, hosted another group of 300 plus educators. The events for the day were a great success, and obviously much needed as indicated by the number of districts and educators that registered for the conference. I thoroughly enjoyed the small role that I played in the program, and I look forward to the planning sessions for next school year’s conference November 8th 2016. For more information on NPEN please visit the website http://northeastpen.com/ or follow on Twitter @NPENPD.