Assignment+2

**Assignment 2 **
 * LIBE 463 **

**School Data ** The elementary school that I have decided to analyze for this assignment was built in 1913 and is one of the oldest still in use in the region that I live in. The school is dual track, with schooling offered both in French and English from Kindergarten to Grade 5. As a result the school does enroll students from the greater community, though a disproportionate amount of these non-catchment area students are enrolled in French immersion track. The school staff consists of 13 enrolling French and English teachers, a part-time librarian, 2 English Learning Assistance teachers, and 1 French Learning Assistance teacher. Based on the school district’s own 2010-2011 school year figures the current school population is at 259 enrolling students. The area surrounding the school has evolved through the years when the school was first built and has seen booms and drops in the school population. The dwellings around the school are a mix of government subsidized housing, condos, character homes and homes built in the past 90 years. Many of the older larger character homes have been converted to contain several rental suites. Partially due to its location (it is close to the city center) and the mix of subsidized housing the school is considered as “inner city,” and thus receives extra funding from the district known as community link funding to run a school breakfast and lunch program. About half of the students in the school are fed breakfast and lunch from the school meal program. As a result of the mixture of housing in the surrounding school neighborhood and being a dual track school, students come from a mixture of socio-economic backgrounds. A majority of the local school population is receiving assistance of some kind from government or the local community. The English track school population tends to be transient and it is not uncommon to have students arriving or leaving from any class on a weekly basis. Data from the most recent school growth plan has also highlighted that 80% of all students are minimally meeting expectations in the area of reading comprehension and 31% of students are receiving some form of Learning Assistance (School Growth Plan, 2008). The 2010 Early Development Indicator (EDI) data showed that 33% of students entering kindergarten at this school were vulnerable in one or more of the areas of physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, and communication skills (EDI Mapping package, 2010).

**Community Partners/ Resources ** Community support for the school library comes in many different ways from community financial support to individuals volunteering their time in the school library. Financial assistance for the library outside of the school budget comes from three main sources: The Times Colonist Grant, the school Parent Advisory Council and the Raise a Reader grant. Each and every year in February the local paper the Times Colonist holds a book drive that collects and resells books to raise money for local school library programs. The amount is then divided amongst the local school libraries on average this grant amounts to about $2500 dollars a year for the school. In addition the school library also receives annual funding from the annual Raise a Reader Grant. The Parent Advisory Council also provides yearly funding for the library. While the amount varies greatly from year to year it is nonetheless appreciated. Additional community support also comes from the local public library. The local public library partners with the school to promote students reading. Each child is eligible for a library card which gives them access to all of the services and checkout materials that the library offers. It also provides programs such as buddy reading that is run at all of the local library branches. The buddy reading program targets students in grades 1 and up that need assistance in the areas of reading in both English and French (Victoria Public Library, 2011). A local librarian also visits the school once a year before summer to get the students excited about the summer reading programs that the library supports. Teachers can also take their classes on a free field trip to the library at any time during the school year. The nearest public library is about a 20 minute walk from the school. An addition resource that was added last year was the new Destiny library catalogue that the school district switched to. The advantage of the new Destiny system is the school library catalogue can be accessed from home so students can search for books from home. Additionally students and teachers can search the library catalogues of other schools in the district. While the system is not currently set up to request books from other schools, it is a hope for the future. Destiny also transfers the library records of students when they switch schools. It has already proven to be valuable as we have been able to recover missing/ unreturned books from students and return them to their previous schools. We also have a district resource center in the district. However in subsequent years the collection has not been added to or maintained so it does not have much to offer.

**Grade Level and Curriculum area ** Over the past ten years the school has seen significant changes in the library. The biggest change has come in the amount of time the school receives for library services. Currently, the librarian is employed .3 (1 ½ days a week). The library has also seen 4 different librarians in the past 10 years, which has created instability both in the programing for students, and the way the school library collection has been maintained. The school also changed in the past 7 years from being a kindergarten to grade 7 school to being a kindergarten to grade 5 school which has resulted in a change in the needs of the library collection. While light weeding of older leveled books was done when the school reconfigured several years ago much of the collection needed a more through weeding. This was done this past year school year as the library collection had to be boxed and stored while the library floor was refinished and the shelving was reconfigured. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The current library program is a mixture of a fixed and flexible schedule. Due to the current teacher librarian’s position of .3 he is unable to see all of the classes during the entire year. The school year is divided up into two and half of the classes see the librarian for the first half of the year and the second group sees the librarian during the second half. The library blocks are 20 minutes long and generally consist of a short story or book talk and then the last 10 minutes is book checkout or renewal. Classes not having scheduled blocks with the librarian are able to use the library during any of the empty time slots and the classroom teacher conducts the library sign out. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">For this course I have decided to focus on the grade three social studies curriculum. My particular focus will be on the learning outcomes regarding students learning about Canada and thus on the section of the library containing these books. The social studies curriculum consists of students learning about the <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">landforms and bodies of water in BC and Canada, and specific information about the provinces and territories (Social Studies IRP, 2006). While this is not an unfamiliar topic area as I currently teach grade 3 I would like to improve upon this unit that I teach and also share it with my colleagues. Other than pulling books from the library collection for my unit on Canada my students did not use the library resources to supplement their learning about Canada when I taught the unit last year. In talking with my colleagues it seems that they teach their Canada unit in a similar style to mine. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">There are currently 50 students who are enrolled in grade three in three separate classes. Of the 50 students 30 are enrolled in the English track and 20 are enrolled in the French Immersion track. Two of the classroom teachers have less than 5 years teaching experience while the third teacher had been teaching for 12 years.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">References ** //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">EDI Mapping Package //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">. (2010). Retrieved January 13, 2011, from <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">[] //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">School Growth plan (2008). //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Retrieved January 13, 2011, from [] //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Victoria Public Library //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (2011). Retrieved January 13, 2011, from [] //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Social Studies IRP //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (2006). Retrieved January 13, 2011, from []