Thank you all for your wonderful responses. Many of your suggestions are
all ready in place and hopefully things will smooth out. I am interested in
knowing from those of you who use 5th grade students before school, who
supervises them? If you are in the TV studio, as I am are you concerned about
liability if something happens to them or another student in the library?
Response #1
Perhaps the students shouldn't do bookcheck every time they come to the
library. I have never, in 9 years (6 in K-5), had an aid, so I do sympathize
with you. If you have the youngest students get a new book every other week,
and the older students every 3 or weeks, you would be gaining some lesson time
with each grade level. Time management is tough when there's no help to be
had. I still remember a post-observation discussion I had with my principal,
when we talked about what one teacher could be expected to accomplish in a
35-40 minute period. At that point in time, I was doing book check first and
then sometimes rushing through the lesson. She suggested that I do the lesson
first and if I ran out of time, then the students would wait till next time
for book check. I took her up on her advice, and worked hard on my time
management, and thankfully there were only a few times when we had to skip our
book check. If you changed your older kids to 3-4 weeks in between each book
check, then you could have one full period be devoted to book selection and
check out. This would allow you to interact with the students and maybe even
book talk a few books, while still giving you half the period to check
everyone out.
Response #2
I have a very similar situation! What we do is student barcode labels for
check-out and put each student's label on a 3 x 5 note card. We stuck old
pocket protectors to a large piece of poster board. At the top of each poster
board we wrote the teacher's name. We put the student cards in the pocket
protectors, and wrote the first and last name of each student across the top. For
kindergarten and 1st Grade we took their old school picture off a master disk
and put their picture on their own pocket.
We set the computer monitor to face the students at the check-out desk, and
have the bar wand in a stand so they just have to put the card beneath the
laser. We try to find one very "with it" student from each class to sit behind
the check-out desk because sometimes messages about users having too many
out, or too many overdue come up. (A student scans their card, then their
books...then the next student must put their card in and then their books, etc.)
Then they put their card back in the poster chart. We re-use the poster charts
(by covering over pictures, etc.)about 5 times before we make new ones. If
the students have all their materials returned at the end of the year, they can
take home their card...they love that! The teachers are mostly worthless
about lifting a finger to help in any way...typical. It's by no means perfect,
but it has helped my sanity. This year I'm hoping I can convince the school to
buy a small machine that prints out the receipt for the books the students
has out with a due date on it.
Response #3
First, can you get any more volunteers to help?
OR can you train some of the 4th and 5th graders to check-in and out for you
in the early am? I have read on this list about student self checkout and
perhaps that would work for you. I would have to give up caring about
mistakes etc and checking out to kids with overdue's, but some students
would
find that and be honest I think. We have the Destiny program and I bought
keypads for my 2 cir desk computers. Students put their own number into that
push enter and then their names show up. All they need to do is scan the
barcode and they have checked out.
I believe I would make the second visit of some of your classes enrichment.
Read alouds, book talks, reader's theatre or quiet reading. You could make
some centers or challenges for those classes too and let them rotate around
those.
Response #4The basic fact is that you will not be able to do the tasks of two
people. I
don't think you should try. Firstly, if you succeed in running all the
activities and programs in the same way as when you had a full-time aide,
the administration will see no reason to increase the time you have now.
Secondly, you'll burn out.
Firstly make a list of the tasks that have to be done - i.e. to keep the
Library and borrowing ticking over. As hard as it is, junk the rest.
Secondly, spend ten minutes with a coffee looking at your library from the
charging desk. How can you direct students to sections without moving? Put
up some posters, etc, so you can use them as landmarks. "Stand beside the
poster with the gorilla. Face the window. Put up your left hand. Etc,
etc." Or I sometime play cold, warmer, hot, where the closer the child gets
to the correct shelf, the hotter they are!
Thirdly, realize that if you have double groups, a single lesson is what
they'll get. You won't see a physical education teacher trying to run two
different skills lessons at the same time. Also restructure your lesson
plan to allow time for you to be checking out. If this means sitting
non-borrowers in front of a DVD or whatever, so be it. You can't supervise
safely (and there are safety issues involved with small children) and
checkout accurately with kids running riot.
These things are sanity-savers, safety issues and short-term.
Next, make lists of the tasks and roles that you and your aide did. Sit
down with your principal and ask for help restructuring. It will give you
an opportunity to discuss the issues and problems. She may come up with
some excellent solutions and compromises. If she is not helpful, then
explain which tasks just cannot be done. If there is a suggestion that
volunteers will take up the tasks, your principal needs to understand that
training volunteers also takes time and relying on them is probably not a
wonderful policy. would also see the teachers, explain the problems and
explain why double roups will have one lesson, etc.
Ruie Chehak, Library Media Specialist
Sallie Jones Elementary School
1230 Narranja Street
Punta Gorda, FL 33950
Ruie_Chehak@ccps.k12.fl.us
941-575-5440
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