RSSNew Challenges
Jul 14
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By: Abby Moynahan
As in many districts around the country, my district struggled during budget time. During that time there were discussions of cutting the elementary library program. In the end our jobs were saved… for now. There are many theories as to why we did not get cut this year. I try not to over analyze the reasons why were saved, I’m just happy that I will be returning for another year in a district I am proud to be part of.
photo by Allie Pasquier (thank you Creative Commons)
Not only did we not get cut but we were given an opportunity to lead another program. The library department is now running the gifted and talented program for the entire district. First, a little background on this program is necessary to understand what has been presented to us as a department. The program is offered to students in third through eighth grade based on test scores. Once a week all of these students were bussed from their classrooms to the middle school to meet as one large group. After that the details are a little hazy. Some students were rarely ever able to articulate what events transpired throughout the day. Knowing children we know how normal that is; sometimes the only thing they remember from a day was what was served for lunch. However, a number of students withdrew from the program during the year. There are a number of explanations for this. Perhaps the gifted students felt like they were being ostracized by being removed from their comfort zone in school. Maybe the program wasn’t challenging enough for students or maybe they were missing gym class on the day they went to the program. Whatever their reasons were, it was obvious that they were losing interest. The other issue with this program is that is was costing the district money.
The district decided to change the program, not cut it. The decision was to keep the program “in house” to save money and hopefully make it more appealing to the community. However, the library department was not given a working program. On the contrary, we were given the responsibility to fix a broken program and make it work. The good news is we were given a blank slate and told to do something with it that will benefit the students and the school community. Some library teachers wait their entire careers for something like this to happen.
There are various pros and cons to this new challenge, as with anything new that we are faced with in our profession. For me, one of the major issues that I’m wrestling with right now is how to run two gifted programs on top of my two existing library programs. Honestly, it comes down to minutes in a day. We are required to meet with the students in this program for three hours per week. Since I am split I will be doing that twice a week which comes out to six hours a week. For those of you who do not work in a school, that is an entire school day. How can I remove a full day from my already jam packed schedule? What will be sacrificed in the name of this new program? Am I qualified to teach gifted children? These are just some of the questions I have constantly running through my mind.
Although I am anxious about this new endeavor, I am also looking forward to the challenge. This experience will be totally new for me and I can only learn from it. I will be working with children that are hungry for knowledge, that is never a bad thing. I truly believe I will learn from these students and I love that part of my job.
In the next few weeks we, as a department, will be working on the curriculum for this program. I am excited to be involved in the process and bring this program to life.
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