School Libraries Are BACK

On Febuary 12th the school libraries went somewhat back to normal at Alvarado Elementary and in New Haven School District. Each school will have a full time librarian, but their job description has changed. Their official description was Library Media Specialist. Now they are called Library Media Technicians. The change of title is due to the Race to the Top grant. When the district applied for the grant, their intention was to have a full time Media Technician assigned at each school. However, the district did not get the full amount of money for which they applied. To make up for the gap the district changed the job title and description of the librarians and added to their duties.

Now librarians will not only teach most classes at every school, but almost all librarians will also be on the advisory technology committee of New Haven. Librarians are assigned or volunteer for technology committees to chart the technology course for the district. This alone is a very big commitment. They will also barcode all the books and textbooks and do all their own cataloging of books in their library. This adds considerably to the burden of elementary school librarians. In the past they taught classes and purchased books, but the district office had a library technician who did the barcoding and cataloging for all the elementary schools. New Haven no longer has a district library technician.

Librarians will continue to purchase books if funds are available for their own libraries. They will also be responsible for billing students for lost books, including textbooks, and weeding (deleting obsolete books), maintaining the high quality of books expected in a school library, and maintaining the physical surroundings parents and teachers desire for a pleasant learning environment for students. As of now, at some schools, some librarians will also be teaching physical education, while a colleague teaches some media classes. It is hoped at Alvarado the prep classes will be held for a grade level all at the same period for each of the preps, PE, music, science, and media. This way grade levels will be able to have professional collaboration time while their children are at their prep.

Paula Figdor is back at Pioneer as librarian. Ron Bragg is the Library Media Technician at Emanuele. Carolyn Vranjas is back at Kitayama, and Carol Engberg is now at Searles. Alvarado now has Donna Leaf as Library Media Technician. Hillview Crest does not have a permanently assigned Library Media Technician. The former librarian at Alvarado, Alisha Valine, is assigned to Ceasar Chavez. The staff and students thank Mrs. Valine for all her hard work at Alvarado.

Alisha Valine at Halloween

Chicken Little

By Rebecca Emberly

No the sky is not falling, but there are many challenges for AE due to California school budget cuts. One at Alvarado is class size. Class size in all grades can be up to 34 students. This includes kindergarten. In the last few years kindergarten and 1st grades had been limited to 20 students. This is a huge change for teachers and students. Last year 2nd and 3rd grade were limited to 25 students. This is no more. Because of the size of classes are so large, it means fewer regular teachers are needed. Therefore some familiar faces around AE will be missing. Some teachers received pink slips and were released from New Haven. Some were assigned to other schools in the district. The smile of Rachna Lindstrom will be missed by students and staff. She will be teaching 4th grade in San Leandro School District. Matt Speakman and Junelle Mallari will no longer be at Alvarado at this writing. However, there are no empty classrooms as 6 new classrooms are now occupied by special education students. Some of these students come from the Cabello facility which was closed at the end of the last school year 2012.

 

Clinton Puckett

Clinton Puckett will be the new Assistant Principal. Clinton has been teaching a variety of grades for the last few years. He also taught the after school dance class and the Color Guard. Vince Lindain, a long time 1st grade teacher, will teach 3rd grade this year. Cathy Hampton, a long time 3rd grade teacher, will be teaching a 3/4 class this year.

After much discussion by district personnel about how to handle library cuts, media/library classes will be non existent for grades k, 1, 2, and 3.  Fourth and fifth grades will have somewhat regular media classes. Alisha Valine, the media specialist/librarian will only be at AE on Monday afternoon, Tuesday all day, and Friday afternoon. On Monday mornings she will be a Kitayama and also all day on Thursday. On Wednesday she will be all day at Pioneer and then again in the morning on Friday. She will do her best to maintain services for the teachers and the classes she teaches, but at this time only 4th and 5th grade students will be able to checkout books. This may still be somewhat tenative because often prep schedules need to be adjusted. Keep an eye on Mrs. Valine's website at Miss Media, to see any changes.

Monday - KIT in the AM, AES in the PM

Tuesday - AES all day

 Wednesday - PIO all day

 Thursday - KIT all day

 Friday - PIO in the AM, AES in the PM

It's going to be a challenge for teachers and students to adjust, but Alvarado teachers know they have a job to do and they will do it to the best of their ability.

Partially Open Media Centers

As of this date, it looks like the libraries/media centers will be open part time in the elementary schools. Some of the media specialists have been assigned to 3 schools so the schools will have 10 hours of media a week, basically to check in and out books in 20 minute periods, or have teacher signups for checkout. Alisha Valine has been assigned to Alvarado, Pioneer, and Kitayama.

 Alisha Valine

Carol Engberg from Eastin has been assigned to Hillview Crest, Searles, and Emmanuel.  Beth Morris Wong from Hillview Crest will teach 20 periods of science and 10 periods of media at Eastin. Carolyn Vranjes of Kitayama has been assigned to teach science at an elementary school. Paula Figdor from Pioneer is going to be a classroom teacher. Media specialists will checkout textbooks to the students. Textbooks are now barcoded.

It will not be usual media classes that students have had in the past. Perhaps principals can figure out how to make time for lessons, which in the past have included the Dewey Decimal System, alphabetizing, readers theater, technology, such as Photoshop, Goggle Earth, or Internet searching and safety; author studies, non fiction research and the development of new knowledge, and building a student network of connections with the teacher's core curriculum. This is still up for discussion. Students in K-2 will probably not be able to check out books.

Library or media

Media

Media is layered to included appropriate literature, technology, internet safety, and library skills . Students check out books and had a skills, literature, or technology lesson every week. The media specialist also ran the media retrevial system known as Synergy during the 1990's. Around 1996 to 1998 students put on a TV school wide show with school news. It was produced by the media specialist but the students did the acting and ran the camera. By 2008 this system was obsolete. When funds were available, author visits were also provided for the students. Patricia Polacco, Caryn Yacowitz, and Marissa Moss were some of the authors. The media specialist also coordinated the yearly Young Author Faire which is no longer in existence in New Haven. The media specialist is a librarian, teacher, and technology mentor for staff, teachers, and students. The media specialists often operated the school wide book fair. The media specialists also trained students from the middle school library to shelve books, do research for new students projects, and help students find information.

As new technology came out it, was often introduced to the students. When Google Earth appeared 4th and 5th graders explored the application for a look at the seven wonders of the world, the oceans, rivers, and countries. Melinda Steffans was the librarian through most of the 1980's. In 1987 Rhonda Neagle became the media specialist. In 1990 through 2008-2009 Sharon Chambers was the media specialist. Alisha Valine became the media specialist in September of 2009.

I-Buddy Internet Safety

Cuts in Education Funding

Cuts in education funding in the year 2010-1011 have affected classroom supplies for students. Teachers are now going out into the community to procure supples for their students. Second grade teacher, Maureen Tecson, has been a help to many of the Alvarado teachers. Maureen has made it part of her job to find out where to get donated materials teachers and students need. Much of the materials have come from online sources. She enlists the help of her friends and family to vote for her classroom to get books for the class library from Cash for Classrooms and even fruit donated by Del Monte Fresh Produce®. She has also used AdoptAClassroom.org to get classroom supplies.

Cathy Hampton received confirmation of a donation of approximately 100 fiction books geared specifically to boy readers! Thanks to Maureen and the donors @ donorschoose! Vince Lindain received individual listening centers--cd players with headphones to differentiate reading levels for listening to books for his first graders. A reading carpet to help students focus and have their own personal space on the carpet was funded for Suhky Gill's third grade class. Thanks to a tip from Maureen, Letty Muñoz Gonzalez received a new listening center donated to the class from Chevron. The media specialist, Alisha Valine, received $800 for DVDS for the library from the Donors Choose website. Anita Schumann first grade project was also funded. Maureen's reminder emails has helped Alvarado receive about $3000 of donated supplies.

Teachers have always applied for grants to support special programs. New Haven Unified School District has a mini grant program and many teachers apply for these. Teachers have always applied for big grants but not for regular classroom materials. Kim Pratt wrote a grant to fund the B-Wet science program at Alvarado and now it's also at Pioneer. The B-Wet grant is a huge grant. However, it's a sign of the tough financial times when teachers have to go the extra mile to get ordinary classroom supplies.

Alvarado: 2007-2009 New Leadership & A New President

With some incoming students and staff from the Cabello closure, we now were a school of approximately 950 students. The former principal of Cabello, Tracie Noriega was our principal and Cheri Benafield was back as assistant principal for 2007-2008 and 2008-2009. Mrs. Noriega brought with her a group of supportive parents who started the Parent Teacher Club at Alvarado. We had not had a parent club for 18 years.

The kindergarten teachers and students now had all day kindergarten. Kindergarten students had previously been half day. This program was hugely successful with parents and was continued the following years.

Traci brought five teachers from Cabello to Alvarado. Two of those teachers Kimberly Pratt and Alisha Valine were connected to a NOAA science grant. Ms. Pratt wrote a B-WET grant "Bringing Science to Life for Students, Teachers and the Community" to provide watershed experiences for students, staff development for teachers and community awareness of our local neighborhood. In addition to classroom instruction on pollution awareness, tide pool organisms, research reporting, and marine mammals, whale-watching cruises were added as part of the curriculum. Science scores have gone up for students working with this grant. (Whale Watching with 5th Graders. Tri-City Voice. March 27, 2007)

Although our Superintendent, Dr. Jaurequi signed an extended contract until 2012, in the summer of 2008 she announced she was leaving New Haven. August 31, 2008 was her last day and Dave Pava, a long time New Haven principal, was Interim Superintendent.

Kari McVeigh

On December 1, 2008 Kari McVeigh came aboard as Superintendent of New Haven Unified School District. She also inherited a declining budget. In the summer of 2009 the California State Legislature made drastic cuts to the education budget. According to the TCV, McVeigh said the strategic plan, no matter how well crafted, is subject to change, but she would leave it in place with few changes. (Dynamism comes to New Haven. Tri-City Voice. Feb. 11, 2009) Since New Haven has great cultural and ethnic diversity, academic equity is an issue Ms. McVeigh plans to address. Not long after Kari McVeigh joined New Haven, Glynn Thompson, Chief Academic Officer, left the district. In June Wendy Gudalewicz was appointed by the Board of Education to serve as Chief Academic Officer of the New Haven Unified School District.

Wendy Gudalewicz

I cannot say anything about new leadership without mentioning our new President of the United States, Barack Obama. This election greatly affected the students. All students did not agree but all had an opinion. In my 17 years at this school, this was the first time the students became fully engaged in extensive conversations about elections and democracy because they were genuinely interested. "Just in Time Learning" took place for many students. Many but not all of our students were extremely excited about a person of color being inaugurated in 2009. It instilled in students the belief that all things really are possible in America.