Secondary Site Visits

So, I got to spend some of my comp time at work and leave for two days to visit both a middle school and an elementary school. Last Tuesday, I visited West Jackson Middle School and spent the day with Laura Miller. I evaluated her biography section. She had an expansive biography selection. My only complaint is that it was very old. The newest book was about Michael Jackson. They did not even have a biography about Barack Obama. I asked Ms. Miller about this and she said that she has not been given any funds for the last three years. That means that she has not been able to buy any new materials and that includes books.

I really liked the setup of the media center. Every part of the room is visible from the circulation desk. That makes it very easy to supervise while working. I was impressed with all that Ms. Miller did while I was with her. She is in charge of taking pictures for the yearbook, monitoring the students in the Media Center, monitoring computer use, checking out and checking in books, and many other things. She does not have a parapro and that makes her job even harder. I enjoyed my time at WJMS.

On Wednesday I got to visit West Jackson Intermediate School. This school serves third through fifth graders. I loved the time that I spent at WJIS! I feel like I could work in an elementary school. While I was there, Mrs. Tucker had a lot going on. She was running a Scholastic book fair. I got to watch her give book talks and work with the teachers. She knew every student by name and what their reading level was and what books they had checked out. It was amazing. Mrs. Tucker is retiring at the end of this year. I hope that whoever takes over for her is amazing as well.

I helped Mrs. Tucker with checking in and out books. Her system is great! She has the barcode scanner set up so that the student can scan the barcode on their student id, then scan the book that they want to check out while she watches. This helps the process go a little faster than usual. I was really impressed with my visit to WJIS!

I realize now that I would gladly work in either an elementary or high school, but I would rather not work in a middle school.