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Library Media Services

School Library photo from FB 100222 c

The School District of University City: Pre-K - 12 Library Media Studies • Mission, Vision, Values and Goals

 

The purpose of Library Media Studies (LMS) in the School District of University City is to equip students with strong literacy foundations, knowledge, skills and mindsets needed for them to thrive in college and career, to flourish as aware and active global citizens.  SDUC’s LMS program has been designed to bring to life the Learning Reimagined pillars of humanizing, personalizing, and problematizing by teaching and supporting students’ appreciation of literature and the development of information skills needed to become lifelong learners. We equip students to independently locate, evaluate and use ideas and information from various and diverse texts in a way that deepens learning experiences, analyze issues from a multicultural perspective, and access technological resources. Our library collections offer windows, mirrors and doors for students, such that students both see their own experiences and identities reflected and gain insight into the experiences and identities of others--thereby increasing equity and access to new opportunities. Our goal is to disrupt systemic issues of inequity, historical underperformance and unhealthy practices that have led to educational trauma for our students, and to create transformational systems to address their diverse academic and social-emotional needs. To accomplish this, we will center racial equity and display value for students’ many identities by using research-based, systematic approaches and restorative practices to create safe, inviting environments for students to positively interact with rich, powerful texts, and each other.

 

Effective LMS instruction includes the following features:

 

Provides a Safe-haven for all students.  

  • Centers on positive and healthy relationships between students and all staff

  • Ensures psychological, physical and emotional safety for students and staff

  • Promotes a comfortable environment to support intellectual exploration and engagement; encouraging all users to effectively use the space and resources in a safe, respectful manner

  • Promotes positive interactions both, individually and collectively, as a class/group 

  • Provides reading advisory to help students understand and discover their identities as readers and to find texts that best suit them, at that time  

  • Provides accountability for students returning materials (gentle reminding), but ultimately not punishing students for not returning materials 

  • Offers diverse collections to connect with students’ many identities and to encourage knowledge-seeking and understanding of differences

 

Teaches students and staff to become effective users of the library. 

  • Provides various lessons and modeling to inform users of the many functions of the library and to expose them to new and innovative aspects of library media science so all are equipped to access the many resources within the library

  • Offers flexible scheduling to support teacher collaboration and co-teaching opportunities

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Provides access to a variety of reading materials to impact each student’s personal reading growth and appreciation to become a lifelong reader/learner.  

  • Students should be empowered to find texts that are right for them and should not be restricted from exploring or checking out any resources within the district collection  

  • Every student has regularly scheduled time to access the library collection with a class and free access to the library as needed

  • Texts are artfully grouped such that students engage with a variety of genres and text types in order to build their textual lineages, deepen knowledge, skills, and vocabulary while instilling a love of reading

  • Displays will be used to pique the interests of library patrons and to highlight various genres, authors, materials, etc 

  • Texts are intentionally selected to expose students to rich, powerful, diverse content to develop and celebrate students’ identities and empower them to build criticality to become change agents 

 

Provides students with the tools to find reliable information  to support inquiry and research both, in and out of the library--equipping them to become effective users of the digital resources. 

  • Provides students with the tools to navigate a digitally literate future  

 

Goals: How will we measure our progress in student achievement? 

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Each year: 

  • We will increase the number and percentage of students reading and writing across content areas, as measured by various assessments.

  • Students will circulate through the library at least twice a month and should check-out texts and resources at least once a month. 

  • Librarians will hold reading advisory conferences with students with each library visit and will document conversations. 

  • We will implement high quality, vertically-aligned and common assessments (formative and summative), driven by research and best practices,  across all buildings to monitor the progress of our students and to develop instructional plans to meet their various needs. 

  • The Librarians will meet monthly and will function as a vertical professional learning community (PLC). 

    • We will make data-driven instructional decisions within our PLC and will analyze the data to inform future instructional plans.  

  • Librarians will collaborate with teachers, quarterly, to develop lessons that will reinforce and support classroom content and foci.