Out of the Shadow: Collaborate

 The domain I decided to focus on for this interview was collaborate. I interviewed Terri Ahlers from Swan Valley High school in Saginaw, MI. The idea to interview Terri came from the shock of reading about her school in a Knowledge Quest article in ISCI 720 (Wejrowski & McRae, 2013). Seriously, there are three certified librarians in my area, how could one of them have all these awards and I didn't know about it?

It turns out, the librarian in the article, Kay Wejrowski, no longer works for Swan Valley High School and neither does the principal who partnered with her. But the position still exists. Based on article, I expected there still might be a collaborative culture there where the librarian "demonstrates the importance of personal, social, and intellectual networks. " 

Just like my last interview with Amy Hermon, getting answers to any of the required questions proved difficult. Once again, Ahlers does not know the AASL standards, and they do not play a role in her library planning. Terri Ahlers looked at the standards and could make activities fit under the collaborate foundation, but then the the process is pointless and just labels applied afterward, not conscious practices. For example, Ms. Ahlers has student helpers (library student helpers is a class at this school) post book recommendations and she shares them all using a QR code that is posted around the school and library. She doesn't know if anyone has scanned the codes though. This activity fits under the collaborate foundation, but I don't think this is the point. 

Currently in the Swan Valley High School program, there aren't really any collaborations with teachers going on. It is a small school and Ms. Ahlers is in her second year. She hopes to get more collaborations as the years go on. Currently, freshmen are required to come to the library for orientation in September. They check out a book that they should read through out the free reading time teachers are supposed to offer daily. But Ms. Ahlers said most teachers are not offering it and most books are just sitting in lockers, not being used while students ignore overdue library books notices. Clearly the culture of reading described in the article is diminished. 

Ahlers, in her 17th year as a librarian, is still learning about the small community of Thomas Township where her high school is. The Swan Valley High School library won a national award for excellence in 2013, the librarian who once staffed this building is gone but her legacy lives on. Ahlers often gets requests for her to teach or follow through with a policy that Kay Wejrowski had. The difficulty, according to Ahlers,  lies in the fact that  Wejrowski often worked on weekends and stayed late so her programs were often detailed and beautiful ( she was an art teacher). And while Wejrowksi excelled at engaging the community, the book collection is sad and outdated. Ahlers is still figuring out who she wants to be as the Swan Valley librarian, what is expected of her, what is optional and how to engage post-COVID kids. 

The AASL standards are thorough and could be a good guide as Ahlers finds her groove at Swan Valley. Most Michigan school librarians, it seems, are just trying to find ways to be valuable so their job isn't cut. However, Swan Valley has invested in a certified school librarian for 20 years in a school of less than 600 kids. Ahlers isn't in charge of any technology or textbooks. There is time and space in her schedule to collaborate, engage, curate, inquire, include and explore. Backing up her ideas with standards and presenting them to the district administrator feel like a great idea to me. Swan Valley lacks standards or curriculum for its library and could benefit from matching curriculum to the the standards and establishing some grade level expectations for library content. 

Ahlers, unlike Hermon,  was hopeful about the standards, giving me multiple examples of times Michigan Association of School Librarians  has tried to introduce legislature requiring curriculum or certification in the school library. She definitely has not given up on school librarians in our state. 


Wejrowski, K & McRae, M. (2013, September/October). Developing a culture of reading through effective library planning. Knowledge Quest 42 (1 ). 



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