Re: [LM_NET] Vent: Literacy coaches & Resources and libraries

[Josephine Dervan <rderva@INFIONLINE.NET>]

My school's book room is composed of sets of leveled paperback books. There is a 
teacher who is in charge of this "room" and receives a stipend for this service. I 
refused to get involved as I knew that after I volunteered, the stipend would 
disappear and it's maintenance would become one of my regular jobs.

I refer to it as a room in quotation marks because it is really a jail cell. Let me 
explain. Last year the collection was housed in a portion of my old work room. The 
teacher in charge reported that many books were missing in June. So it was decided 
that they needed a locked facility. So TPTB came in and had a metal link wall and a 
sliding door installed. It does look like a jail cell. The problem is that the 
teacher in charge this year unlocks it in the AM and locks it in the PM. There 
doesn't seem to be a sign out process and I'm sure they'll lose more books this 
year.

The books are basically readers with one silly story in each. None of them would be 
bought by a school library and they have their own supplier. 

We have not lost any funding as a result of the book "room" and the training that 
teachers receive. Funding comes from state grants for NCLB. The children understand 
that these books are not library books and still take out the many interesting 
books in our library regularly.

So I do not feel threatened by this "fad" and assume that it will go the way of 
things like whole language one day...

Jo 



Josephine Dervan, Library Media Specialist
Strathmore School
Aberdeen, NJ 
home:rderva@infionline.net
school:jdervan@marsd.k12.nj.us

He who has a garden and a library, wants for nothing- Cicero

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