June 2022

Volume 3.5

Welcome to the North Carolina School Library Media Association's Monthly newsletter!

Questions? Contact kenishasmith@ncslma.org

In this edition:

NCSLMA Website

Our Sponsors





PRESIDENT'S CORNER


Jenny Umbarger

NCSLMA President

2022-2023


My original words didn’t feel right after this week’s events, and it has been difficult to find the right words–I don’t know that they exist. Our hearts go out to the families of those killed in the Robb Elementary school shooting, as well as all of the school and Uvalde community.



#NCSLMA2022


Jennifer Abel

Conference Chair, President Elect


Registration is now open for our 2022 in-person conference

"We Are Not Alone in the Library"
The conference will be held October 6- 8, 2022 at the Benton Convention Center in Winston Salem.

For more details, visit the conference webpage: NC School Library Media Association - 2022 Conference.

Early Bird Registration (through 8/20/22)

Early Bird Member registration: $150

Early Bird Non-member registration: $200

Early Bird Out-of-State Member Registration: $150 (with proof of membership to state organization)


Registration is complete when payment has been received. Early Bird Registrations end 8/20/22! 

INSIDE NCSLMA

Calling All Bloggers

NCSLMA has a small blog on our website. If you would like to contribute to it, please send submissions to kristysartain@ncslma.org. We're looking for news items, stories about your library, fun events you have had, etc. Pictures can be included and are welcomed. There are no minimum or maximum length requirements. Share some of the great things going on in your library!


We Need You!!

This has been a year of challenges in so many ways!  The one positive note about the many book challenges in counties across our state was it brought out the passion and advocacy in many of our members.  This was so inspiring to see. 

One way you can use this passion for book access is by volunteering to serve one of the three levels of Battle of the Books.  We welcome passionate librarians that love books and love to read.  You can reach out to the chairs of each level if you are interested in serving on any of the committees.  We would love to have you as part of our BOB team!!

ebobchair@ncslma.org

mbobchair@ncslma.org

hbobchair@ncslma.org


Stacy Hersey, Director of Book Programs

Present at Summer Learning Series

Want to share your knowledge with your fellow school librarians? Apply to present at one of this year's Summer Learning Series sessions Tuesdays at 7pm July 12-August 9. Visit bit.ly/SLSapp2022 The deadline to apply is June 4.

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North Carolina Children's Book Award Winners

NCCBA Emblem.jpegThe North Carolina Children's Book Award Committee would like to announce that the votes are in and we have our winners!  Thanks to everyone who participated! For the complete voting summary, please go to http://nccba.blogspot.com/p/2022-results-and-materials.html.

A total of 66,017 votes were submitted for the picture book category and our winner is Bad Dogwritten and illustrated by Mike Boldt, receiving 13,534 votes.

A total of 4,875 votes were submitted for the junior book category and our winner is New Kid, written and illustrated by Jerry Craft, receiving 1,097 votes.

In May, the NCCBA Committee met to select the nominees for the 2023 Awards.  We select our nominees from titles the children have submitted over the past 6 months and they must be published within the past 3 years. We will post the 2023 list of nominees and activity guide on the blogspot in the coming weeks. We will also be presenting the new books at our concurrent session at NCSLMA Conference on October 6-8, 2022 in Winston-Salem. Hope to see you there!

Closing Keynote--2022 Conference

We are excited to announce that Dr. April Dawkins will be our closing keynote speaker for the 2022 NCSLMA Conference! We cannot wait to see all of you October 6-8. Make sure you follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to stay up to date on everything NCSLMA.

We have a new store!


NCSLMA Sections

Advancement
Director: Faith Huff

Advocacy
Director: Susan Sawin

Awards, Grants, Scholarships
Director: Sarah Justice

Book Programs
Director: Stacy Hersey

G-Suites
Director: Cindy Sturdivant

Membership
Director: Laura Aldridge

Regional Directors:
Lead: Robin Rhodes

Social Media
Director: Alicia Luke

Website
Director: Kristy Sartain

NC MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

Member Spotlight

We'd like to continue the appreciation and the acknowledgement from School Library Month with a new Membership Spotlight feature which highlights some of our fantastic NCSLMA members.  Meet our new member spotlight: Colleen Dixon and follow her on social media.


Two Books, One School

Two Books, One School

Liz Noland

Library Media Coordinator, The Downtown School, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools


2022 marked the second year of The Downtown School’s schoolwide read program, “Two Books, One School,” which was launched in 2021 as a literacy initiative focused on bringing our K-8 magnet school community together in the midst of the pandemic and hybrid learning. Our Curriculum Committee worked collaboratively to spearhead the initiative and build upon last year’s success, starting with brainstorming titles in early Fall 2021 that shared common themes and would be engaging for students. After selecting Renée Watson’s Ways to Make Sunshine for K-5 and Pablo Cartaya’s The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora for our middle school--which we were able to purchase at a discount from Scholastic with a combination of Scholastic Book Club rewards and PTA funds--we next focused on building excitement in our school community. Librarian Liz Noland and 7th grade ELA teacher Sarah Armas created book trailers for both books, and Ms. Armas and 4th/5th grade ELA teacher Jan Morris pulled together resources that our teachers could use to facilitate discussions and activities around the books. Ms. Noland created a website to house resources as well as weekly read-alouds of the books to help ensure that all students and families would be able to engage with the schoolwide read. We held a spirit week at the beginning of the third quarter leading up to book distribution, which were handed out with letters to caregivers and a laminated bookmark that included a QR code for the Two Books, One School website: sites.google.com/wsfcs.k12.nc.us/dtstbos.


Throughout third quarter, our principal promoted the read-alouds in his emails to caregivers, and Ms. Armas created weekly slides and trivia questions for middle school teachers to use during morning homeroom meetings to help increase engagement with our older readers. 6th grade Science teacher Kate Hall led the creation of a school cookbook as a tie-in to both books’ connections with food and cooking, with students invited to submit family recipes as well as designs for the cookbook cover. Staff also contributed family recipes, and the finished cookbook was sold at our school’s 30th anniversary celebration in April, with proceeds going toward next year’s schoolwide read! Ms. Noland successfully applied for funding from Project Launch at First Bank, a North Carolina community bank, and The Lovett Foundation, a local grantmaking foundation, to hold virtual visits with both authors as a capstone experience. Our middle schoolers loved hearing directly from Pablo Cartaya in late April; while our virtual visit with Renée Watson had to be postponed until Fall 2022, we were able to purchase a copy of her sequel, Ways to Grow Love, for every K-5 family, as well as reading group sets of some of her middle grade/YA titles for our 6-8 classrooms, through our local bookstore Bookmarks for her author visit. Finally, with the remaining funds from our Lovett grant, we were able to select and pre-purchase a middle grade title for our 2023 schoolwide read: Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes! We were excited to use the grant funds to expand our book search to middle grade titles that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to afford with the 2022-2023 PTA budget, and we also decided to include our 5th grade students in our “middle grade” read for next year (rather than elementary). We cannot wait to continue to build upon this successful and popular schoolwide literacy program in Year Three!

Pablo Cartaya's virtual author visit (credit: Liz Noland)


Project Launch check presentation at First Bank (credit: Jake Browning/WSFCS)

Downtown School 1st grader Keith G. diving into Ways to Grow Love (credit: Liz Noland)

Congratulations--Erwin District Teacher Of The Year!

Caryn Levy 

2022-2023 

Erwin District Teacher of the Year 

 Buncombe County Public Schools


Congratulations to Caryn Levy for being awarded 2022-2023 Teacher of the Year in the Erwin District for Buncombe County Schools! She will now compete for 2022-2023 Buncombe County Teacher of the Year. 

Caryn is the Media Coordinator at Leicester Elementary and has worked in that capacity for 21 years. Caryn has spoken at NCSLMA conferences, mainly as a Coach with The Library of Congress program, Teaching with Primary Sources and held a NCSLMA board position a number of years ago.  She plans on focusing a light on how Media Coordinators are truly making a difference with students.  At her school, she highlights hands-on, personalized learning through Makerspace and promotes life skills, such as teamwork, organization, and creativity, through the work students complete in the Media Center's stations.


Tech Tip: Bad Header Fix

Bad Header Fix

By Tonya Monroe-Leach

Western Guilford High School Media Specialist


The Lenovo Chromebooks are starting to show an error message of Bad Header when trying to search or pull up a site in Chrome. Here’s a quick fix for this issue. 

Step 1: Open Chrome

Step 2: Click on the three dots (snowman) in the top right-hand corner. 

Step 3: Select Setting 

Step 4: Select Security and Privacy 

Step 5: Select Clear Browsing Data

Step 6: Select All Time under Time Range then click Clear Data

ANNOUNCEMENTS

How Would an Immersive Career Exploration Center Inspire and Include Your Students?

Students need to envision themselves in the future as a contributing member of the community. This is challenging, but there is a fun, exciting, and easy way the media center can help! Is there a dedicated spot in your school media center where students can go and check out something career related? Now, there are very interactive activities you can rotate from time to time that will have students very interested in it! 

For example, your Career Exploration Center could be a great place to introduce students to virtual reality! They could use some type of headset or device (at any price point) to experience a variety of immersive experiences such as work experiences, tours of workplaces, interviews with employees or employers as well as tour college campuses. Many of these types of 360 videos are available online at no cost. No immersive devices? You can still have students view on a computer or tablet by scrolling around the 360 videos in all directions. Not ideal, but they still get the content. 

Why should the VR Career Exploration Center be in the media center? Let’s look at some key AASL Standards. “1. The school library is a unique and essential part of a learning community. …the school librarian ensures that the school library environment provides all members of the school community access to information and technology, connecting learning to real-world events. 6. Information technologies must be appropriately integrated and equitably available.3. Learners should be prepared for college, career, and life. Committed to inclusion and equity, effective school librarians use evidence to determine what works…for each learner; …success empowers learners to persist in inquiry, advanced study, enriching professional work, and community participation.”

By having this engaging and informative technology in the media center where all students can access it equitably, and it can be kept safe and in good condition, more students can be inspired to research further about a future they can now envision. They are excitedly practicing 21st century and inquiry-based skills to pursue their dream. The Immersive Career Exploration Center, your media center, becomes a bridge between the world of education and the world of professionalism and community membership beyond.

Need resources or funding to create an Immersive Career Exploration Center that will wow your community? There are lots of resources! Your school CTE/CDC department, the PTA, grant funding, and community sponsors may be eager to help!

-Rebecca Habbershaw, Wake County CTE Teacher and CEO of Learning Lab 360, LLC 

Learning Lab 360 (https://learninglab360.com) provides educational VR across NC via a mobile trailer! Email rebecca@learninglab360.com for more information and/or to refer anyone to help us part time! We’re hiring! See us at the NCLSMA Conference in October!

Continuing Ed Opportunities
Brought to you by the State Library of North Carolina

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CONTRIBUTE TO THE NEXT NEWS & NOTES

Would you like to contribute to the next NCSLMA News & Notes?

We want to hear from you! Do you have an upcoming multi-school or district event, were you recognized in some way, are you involved in the coolest collaboration, or did you contribute in some other spectacular way that shows the value of school libraries and librarians? We know you did! So we want to share the fabulous things school librarians are doing across the state! Please submit links to articles, published materials, and/or graphics to Kenisha Smith (kenishasmith@ncslma.org). Materials should be "copy and paste" ready. Submissions will be edited and published at the discretion of the NCSLMA News & Updates Editorial Team.

Submission Guidelines Document



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