The Principal's Handbook

Innovative Literacy Programs with Teacher Librarian Janet Weill
[00:00:00] This episode is part of the National Literacy Month with RAF campaign, a partnership between the Bee Podcast Network and Reading is Fundamental to host numerous productive conversations across our network of podcasts about developing kids reading and literacy skills for life
Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance, I'm Barb Flowers. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.
Well, welcome everyone to the principal's handbook. I'm excited to be here [00:01:00] today with guest Janet Weill. She is going to talk to us today about her experiences as a school librarian. Janet, I'm going to have you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and your experiences in education and what you're currently doing.
Thank you so much, Barb. I'm very happy to be here and hope I can help shed some light on the mysteries behind school libraries and all the things we do. I was a social science teacher in high school and, , at, one point in my career had an opportunity to consider getting a second teaching credential, , in school libraries and become what we now call today in California teacher librarians and, , very purposefully we put the word teacher first.
We take our school libraries and convert them into the biggest classroom on campus. I was very blessed to have that position for 14 years at Central High School East Campus, which is [00:02:00] in Fresno, California. And that's in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley. And, we are most famous for our mass production of fruits and vegetables.
We are truly an agricultural region. And because of that, a lot of our students come from farming families. We have a lot of immigrant families, , not so much the traveling with the crops the way they used to, but certainly we've had over, oh gosh, the last, , A couple of decades, a huge influx of immigrants from Southeast Asia, from India.
So, and we've always had a large, a large population of people from Mexico, but now we have a real melting pot in the valley. And as a teacher librarian, I had the absolute privilege and joy of Yes, building a love of reading and a culture of literacy. And we did that [00:03:00] in multiple ways that we'll talk about.
But another crucial thing that we did was we taught collaborative units with all of our teachers. So, for example, the history teacher would come to me and say, You know, we're going to do a unit on World War two, and there's just so much information out there. How do we help our students? How do we guide their research?
And so we would spend a lot of time on really information literacy, trying to help students understand the difference between a legitimate source and a not legitimate source between a bias source and a non bias source. And, and the whole idea that books can be every bit as beneficial as an internet search, and an internet search can be extremely beneficial if you know the right things to look for.
We worked also to build a culture in our [00:04:00] libraries where all of our students felt seen and represented and heard and It became, as strange as this sounds for a high school, it became the cool place to be on campus. We had the technology, yes, so students could use technology and of course they liked that, but we also had maker spaces so students can do things with their hands.
We had poetry contests, we had , reading clubs, book clubs. And gradually, we just, over the 14 years I was there, really built, , a library that became the hub of the school. And I got to be a real part of the instructional team, which was wonderful. , and then I moved in 2014 to my current position, which is supervisor of library services.
So, for the district. So I oversee 22 school libraries And, , not only the library aspect, but the [00:05:00] textbooks aspect, , which when I tell the kids that they make those funny faces at me, but, , it is an important part of what we do. And in California, we have a law called Williams compliance, and we have to prove to the state, once in the fall and then four times a year that our students have resources.
Appropriate resources for their classes that their teachers are fully qualified and that their facilities are in good shape. So we do a lot. We're busy. , we actually start school in a couple of weeks out here. So we are eagerly awaiting the return of our students for another school year. Wow, that sounds like such a cool position and I love how you talk about the school librarian as a teacher librarian and it sounds like there's so much teaching that still goes in that and I've seen that look so different in the districts that I've been in so that's really neat that you collaborate so much with the teachers and try to do a lot of cross curricular instruction [00:06:00] and curriculum with them.
We are very fortunate in our district. We have a teacher librarian at each of our secondary school sites. We do not yet have them in the elementary. I'm not done yet. I still have more work to do, but having them in the secondary sites And they team with a library, with what they call out in California, a library media technician, which is someone who has a two year, degree from a junior college in library management.
And that frees the teacher librarian up to do the lesson planning, to do collaborative units with the classroom teachers, to be, consistently an instructional leader on the campus because they're not. stuck at the circulation desk, checking in and out books. , in addition, a huge part is really encouraging kids to read.
And we all know when they get out of elementary school, their reading tends to really go down. And we've found by [00:07:00] having our students participate at the middle school and high school in battle of the books, and we do a local competition and we do a, , a county competition. And our kids will start in middle school.
And then by the time they get to high school, , they've got a couple of years experience under their belt. And we've been the proud county winners for the last couple of years. So, , we were consistently looking for ways to encourage our students to read. We participate a lot in what's called the California Young Reader Medal, which is, a state award that is actually voted on by the students themselves.
So there's a committee that puts forward a group of books in a nomination. The students are required to read all the books that are nominated and then they themselves vote. on their favorite book. And I found by teaming with social science teachers, science teachers, English language arts teachers, there were always books that fit into their subject [00:08:00] category.
And I would say, Hey, maybe we could use this, you know, two birds with one stone. They could participate in CYRM, but they could also use this for a book report or for a book talk or make a trailer and get some class credit for that. , and so I found that You know, teachers are really very willing to support kids reading.
, we just have to find the right ways to get them drawn in. Yeah, that's great. I love all those programs and ways that you're really trying to engage kids in reading, especially past elementary school, because. You know, my experience has been in elementary, and I think overall in elementary, we do a really good job of promoting reading with right to read weeks and different things happening and a lot of elementary teachers love reading love books and share them with their students.
Not that middle school or high school teachers don't. It's just a different culture of literacy. So I love All the programs that you have in place. I know that you've also done something called athletes as readers [00:09:00] and leaders and slamming in your library. So talk to me a little bit about those programs as well.
Well, I am always happy to talk about those programs because I'm so, so proud of them and what they've done for our, our, our kids, the, , slamming started. , the, , American Library Association does a Teen Read Week. It's now called Teen tober, so it's the whole month of October, and it incorporates all sorts of technology and literacy and a lot of reading.
It used to be just one week, and they always had a theme. And one year, it was slammin in your library. Well, obviously at a public school, , we have to be a little cautious with slamming because slamming is very free form, uses a lot of, , sometimes language that's not necessarily, , going to be appropriate on a school site.
So what we did is we took the idea of a slam and basically created a poetry contest, and the students were encouraged to write original works of [00:10:00] poetry. And that and what I did is again I teamed with the English language arts department and got them to be willing to give their kids extra credit, if they participated in this poetry slam, and it started slowly Barb it really did I think the first year.
Gosh, maybe, or the first fall, we had. Maybe 10 or 12 kids who competed. So it was pretty small. It had to be, you know, we set good limits. It had to, they had to turn the poem in advance so we could check for plagiarism and appropriateness. Because sometimes the content is very challenging and we want to make sure that the student is okay.
And, , so, you know, there was often. calling kids in and talking to them about their content. , and anyway, what we did is we decided that since it was so much fun and literally it was the students who said, Miss Wilde, this is so cool. We have to do it again in the spring. So we did. So we did it again in the spring.
And since then it has just become part of the [00:11:00] culture of the school. So they do slamming in your library every spring at Central High School. , we now have, , another high school that started it and they had their first one last year. The high school is only two years old. So, , they're just adding this program and we have two of our middle schools do it now.
And the kids write original works and we have , E. L. A. Teachers who come and judge and we do at the usually at the junior high, they don't score it. It's just to share your poem. And if you're not comfortable sharing it, someone else can read it for you. But what we learned at the high school was that some kids really write great poetry.
But they don't necessarily present it well. And a slam is a lot about the presentation. So what we decided was, let's give awards for excellence in writing, and let's give awards for excellence in presentation. And so we kind of, so now it's gotten so big, they have the finals in our Performing Arts Center at the [00:12:00] high school.
, and you know, she'll get, now the teacher librarian there probably gets. 30 or 40 kids that sign up and we have three days of preliminaries and from those, , the top 10 finalists compete on the last day. And so it's just really been a fun program and, sometimes it breaks your heart. When you hear what the kids share, , and other times it makes you laugh so hard you can't stand it.
They're just, they're so talented and they're so wonderful. And then athletes as readers and leaders. , I read a study in 2008 out of Stanford and it talked about, , really the challenge for youth at that time. And I think it's even more challenging now with being active. And the danger of, you know, kids really dealing with, yes, the weight issue, but just the lethargy, the lack of activity, , always, and now, of course, the screen time.
So, a friend of [00:13:00] mine up in Napa Valley, her name is Kate McMillan, she's an amazing district librarian in Napa Valley, and her son happened to be the football coach. So she said, , how about if , we get the football players and we have them go to one of the elementary schools and they'll read the book in an assembly.
And I really like that idea, but I was looking for something to help build the feeling of community in our district, because we're not a huge district for 16, 000 students, but it felt like there was a lot of disconnect between elementary school and high school. And I wanted something that was more intimate for the students.
And so. I kind of thought about it and we just happened to be getting a new football coach. So I went and talked to the new football coach and I said, what would you think if I, you know, you gave me a few of your football players and I worked with them on how to read to kids, , not reading at them, reading with them, the engaging strategies that [00:14:00] we always use, the prediction questions.
And, you know, And we have these kids go to elementary schools and read and, and, and he thought it was a great idea. So did my principal. They were so supportive. And I mean, it could have just died right there if I hadn't had supportive administration. And so on Halloween of 2008, I took two of our football players and these great big guys, and they're in their football jerseys cause it's Friday.
And they're going to be, , playing football that night. And I took two of them to a school that was just literally. Just down the block and we read to a class and it happened to be Halloween. So the kids were all in costume. It was hysterical. Well, they read, , They read a book the, , Ronde Barber and his brother, Tiki Barber, and it was their picture book. And these two big football players read this book with the little kids.
And then, and they, they did a great job. They asked questions, they kept the kids engaged you. And when we finished, the kids went [00:15:00] nuts. They went nuts. And fortunately, my boss, the supervisor of library services at that time, came to watch. Because this was, we were just trying it. We had no idea if this was even going to work.
And it was so successful, she got back to the district office and went straight to the athletic department and said, you've got to find a way to fund this program. And so we started, it was me and seven football players and, then we started adding more athletes. So then I got swimmers, we got wrestlers, we got, , Soccer players, we had tennis players. Then all of a sudden the cheerleaders wanted to be involved and the pep girls wanted to be involved and the folklorico dancers wanted to be involved. So now in a given year, , we probably read to about 5, 000 kids and they go once a week.
The athletes are trained , by the teacher librarian, but also by, , participants from the previous year. So the kids are training [00:16:00] the kids. They introduce themselves. They tell what sport they play. , and then they read any book that focuses on, it's not about being on a team. It's about being active.
It's about making healthy choices. We do books that talk about citizenship stuff like bullying. , we might have a book about, , you know, the gulps about how do you eat healthy at a fast food restaurant. So we try to have a wide range of books for the students to pick. And then we make sure each student in the classroom gets a bookmark.
And the best part is the questions that the little kids will ask the high school kids. And they come up, as you know, as an elementary educator, Barb, , and so we have to teach the athletes. Sometimes the kids will say things and you try your best not to let your mouth drop open. , but let me share what we found this program has done.
So we're now starting our 16th year and I get a little emotional [00:17:00] talking about it because , you know, when you start something, you hope it works, but Yeah, no. And as the year started to go by students who'd been the readers, the athletes started writing and telling me about how this changed their life, how it made them realize that giving to other people was such an important part, or it made them want to consider a job in education, or they started tutoring little kids in college.
And so we started really beginning. To get this awareness that this was impacting the high school kids every bit as much as it was the little kids. And now what we're seeing 15 years later, we have kids who remember being read to who spent the next 10 years waiting to be in high school so they could be an athlete as reader and leader.
And so we have legacy students , we've had brothers and sisters and gosh in a few years we'll probably have our [00:18:00] first you know parent to child participant. But the program now has an average of over 100 athletes that participate. We've opened it at a second high school. , they read usually three times a month.
, each elementary school gets read to at least twice. The challenging thing is, of course, the transportation and the schedule and all of that. And, but let me just share what happened during COVID. So, it's March of 2020, the school's locked down, , the athletes as readers and leaders are sad because they don't get to do their last month of, of, of stuff and we start the next year as a hybrid and, you know, most kids are still at home and we're not at school and, and the athletes themselves came to the teacher librarian and said, Miss Flores, we need to go read to those kids.
They miss us. So they started coming in once a week and reading via zoom into the classrooms. And [00:19:00] it was so powerful. I think it, helped the kids at home. Remember they weren't alone that , other kids were going through it. It gave 10 minute down, which they all needed on zoom. But I think it really helped.
the kids stay connected. , and so out of that has grown a program called Kinder Tech Buddies. And so now we have , our English language students, our EL students, read to kindergartners on Zoom once a week. So here we have kids that are learning English as high schoolers who are now reading to the kinders and they do it all on Zoom, but At the at the end of the year, we take them.
We take the high school kids over to the elementary school so they can meet them. And at one of our middle schools, one of our TL started a reading buddies program, and she took again the kids that were struggling with English with their reading kids that were in intervention classes. And , they happen to [00:20:00] have a partner school, , elementary school on the same campus.
So they go over and read with the kinder kids. So we're even beginning to see more programs develop out of those. And , I'm very proud to say that both Slammin and athletes were acknowledged by the California school board and received golden bell awards, which was absolutely icing on the cake. , but it's truly.
The stories the students have shared with us over the years of how much this meant to them and how it changed their lives. , , and one of the first things the athletes will often say to the kids is, how many of you like to read? And some of them, yes, but a lot will say no. And so it's kind of cool.
I mean, I could go read to every class every day. You know, who's this lady, right? It's cool with the cheerleader comes in. They are cool just by the definition. So the program has been very, very successful. Such great, , ways for, , the high schoolers, as you were talking, that's what I was thinking.
I [00:21:00] love that. You actually teach them how to read and engage with the kids, because I've seen, , you know, people come in and there is a difference. And so what a great skill that you're teaching them. And they're getting a lot out of it as well as the students. So those are great programs. , so this episode's part of the reading is fundamental campaign.
Can you talk to us about what that is, what reading is fundamental is and how you use that program in your district? I would be happy to, Barb. We are incredibly grateful to Reading as Fundamental Program. , I, I know that it's a program that is funded, by Congress and really, some years the funding's there and some years the funding isn't.
And, , The goal is to get books in kids hands. Our school district happens to be a book desert, and we do not have a branch of the public library in our school district. We partnered [00:22:00] with our public library and had two very small branches in two of our schools to try to help our students and we still have one branch in one of our schools.
The families. Use it a lot that more that they request books and the books are delivered. , but we didn't have a physical building, a physical public library. And for a lot of our families, transportation is a challenge. We have a lot of immigrant families, a lot of very remote Low socioeconomics.
And so, , there wasn't even a bus line that could take them down to a public library conveniently. , reading is fundamental. , and I, my experience with them goes back 11 years. So they reached out to me as the supervisor of library services and asked if we would be interested in getting involved in their programs.
And I mean, I'd heard about it since I was a kid. I've always known that reading is fundamental, but what they were offering our [00:23:00] kids was a real amazing opportunity to actually get books of their own to take home. So even better than being able to go check out a book and take it home for two weeks is a book that you get to take home.
And we know that in many of our families homes, There are no books, there's no magazines, there's no reading material, either it's not part of the family's culture, or it's not something they can afford, or it's not something necessarily on their radar. And, you know, our school libraries do a great job of having books for kids to read, but that's just it, they have books to read.
And again, not books that you get to take home and put on yourself. So the first time we partnered with them, we had them work with one of our schools. , the families are, struggling to make ends meet They don't even do well with a book fair, because they don't have the money to buy a book.
So, Reading is Fundamental came in, they shipped their boxes [00:24:00] of books and came in and the kids got to come to the library and every student got to pick their own book. And we watched that again last year at another site, and there is something so incredibly powerful about watching a student select a book that's theirs to keep.
And, There's almost that disbelief, I get to keep this book I get to take it home. Yeah, it's so important that ownership, especially for kids who don't normally have that. And so reading is fundamental has been. Very active in two of our schools and really year after year have played this wonderful role of getting books in our students hands and giving them that pride of ownership.
How do schools go about partnering with Reading is Fundamental? You can email them. I mean, they really are great because they're [00:25:00] always looking for schools that will partner with them. And I think, and I'm sorry, Barb, my, my memory doesn't serve me quite the way it used to. If I recall, I got an email.
And they were looking for schools in our area to participate. But I also know there's a lot of other schools in our area that don't participate with reading as fundamental. And so I would suggest anyone who was interested to just, , look them up and send them an email and ask for information because they have different programs.
The one we use, the home ownership, is just one of the programs that they offer for schools. Okay, yeah, that because I hadn't heard of them before. So I think that that's a great option for schools that, don't have the resources and want to get books in their kids hands. Because like you said, there is that sense of ownership that kids bring and they get so excited when they are there.
Yeah. able to get a book. Is it for certain [00:26:00] ages or is it all the way up to high school? It it is for elementary students. , at least the program we participate in. I need to be a little careful about how strongly I say that. I have not, , I have not researched what they offer for middle school or high school.
, we've had it at two of our elementary schools and they've come in pretty consistently. , the kids get at least one book. Sometimes they get two and three books. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's really start their own little library. It's great. Right, right. Well, we've talked about a lot of great ideas on the podcast today.
And I just want to know if I'm a principal and I'm in a school, maybe a smaller district, because you said your district's not that big and you have 16, 000 kids. And I laughed because I was in a district with 2000. That seems huge to me. , but if you, , don't have any of these. program started, , how would you go about just getting a culture of literacy started?
, what would your first [00:27:00] steps be? Your advice for a principal, , who wants to bring more literacy activities and just this culture into their school or district? Well, , I think, obviously the first step is making that decision, that that's something that you want to do. I do think part of the reason we were successful is that we started at our high school with, , we had a defined 10 minutes a day for reading.
It was called silent sustained reading or SSR because at the high school kids don't usually read and what we did is I as the school librarian would pop in and announce to classes during the SSR to see who I could catch reading and take pictures and then we'd make a poster and put a look who got caught reading this book and we kind of made We had fun with it.
, and the teachers, I got the team. We got the teachers on board who were willing to, you know, post outside of their classroom what book they were reading. , [00:28:00] things like that can be very beneficial. , if your state. Has any kind of, and almost every state has something like California Young Reader Medal, where there is a defined book that they want kids to read and have a voice in selecting.
So almost every state has a program like that. , you could reach out to the State Library Association because every one of our states, like we have California School Library Association, there's Ohio School Library Association. There is the. , school library branch of the American Library Association, AASL.
And they all have wonderful resources and lots of information. But I really think a big part of it is modeling. , that reading is a great thing to do. And it was really interesting walking into the classrooms during SSR. There was such a feeling of peace and contentment.
Kids weren't sleeping some [00:29:00] magazines, which was fine. , back then we didn't have a lot of graphic novels, but now, you know, the kids read graphic novels. I think , it's important not to necessarily control. You can only read this. But leave that choice available in reading. And that can be hard when you don't have a lot of resources.
. It can be very difficult, you know, to say, Yeah, we want you to pick a book, but we only have this little pile for you to choose from. , but I think , a big part of it is that mindset that we're going to make this happen. , And doing your research and finding programs like Reading is Fundamental, finding grants that are out there from American Library Association, from, , State Library Associations.
In Fresno, we have this incredible group called Reading Heart. It was started by a little girl who, it drove her crazy that not all of her classmates had books at home. Oh wow. She's in a different district than ours. But she really thought how blessed she was to have a [00:30:00] home library. And it bothered her that some of her classmates didn't.
And they now have, matter of fact, next Monday they do what they call, , teachers free library. And so people donate books to them. They get lots of grants, and so teachers go in and get books for classroom libraries. , there's a lot that happens. Kind of at the local level. , the public libraries often have programs to support their school libraries.
One of the things we did, and this is a little different, , because I'm going to go digital here, , we partnered with a company called Overdrive, which is a digital library, but we joined in what's called a joint use agreement with the Fresno County Public Library. So our kids can access. The appropriate age level material at the Fresno County Public Library without needing a separate library card, they can use their single sign on that they use at school.
And so in the flick of a switch, our [00:31:00] kids went from having access to 2000 books to 20, 000 books. Listening to books is reading, , reading on an iPad, on a phone, on a Kindle, that is reading, , opening your hardback book, that is reading. I think sometimes, too, it's having that willingness and flexibility to say, it may not look the way it did when I was a kid, but it's great, and we have kids, because of graphic novels, they never read.
Because we found a format that works for them. So I think sometimes , our contempt or our set attitudes about something, , can make it challenging to start a program. Yeah. And like you said, we don't always think about audio books and things like that. And especially as with the younger kids we do, but as kids start to read, we think, okay, we want them to practice reading, but it's so good for them to get that background knowledge, which helps with their reading skills.
That story. I mean, the best bang for your buck is to listen and read at the same [00:32:00] time. Yeah. I always tell It doesn't matter what they're reading as long as they're reading. And sometimes that's listening. Yeah, that's great. Well, lots of great tips. And I love all that you've done in your school district.
There's been so many programs that you have added, which is really cool to hear about. So thank you so much for being on the podcast principles. I hope you got some ideas and I hope that, this inspired you that if you're not collaborating with your librarian you take that time to collaborate, because there are so many things that you can be doing. And like Janet said so many programs and grants out there that you could find that would help benefit your students.
So thank you again, Janet, for being here. It's been a great conversation and I appreciate you being on the podcast. It was a real pleasure. Thank you so much, Barb.
Mhm. [00:33:00] Mhm.