A Closer Look at the National School Library Standards in Kershaw County School District

     Bambi Ferrer is the librarian at North Central High School, where she also teaches AP Computer Science. She is well-known for how she empowers her learners through the shared foundation of Engage.      She uses her roles as communications contact and technology integration specialist to model these competencies because social media, communications, and presentations are critical tools for her high school learners. She often shares strategies, information, and tools in faculty meetings so that her teachers are well-informed and part of a community of users of responsible and ethical use of digital content. She frequently collaborates with teachers on research activities that teach students the proper ways to search for digital content. She acknowledges the greatest challenge is that Google makes things easy to find and use, but helping students understand the reasons why this can be very problematic is important to creating a culture of ethical use. Since she is able to work with s

     One of the most successful ways that Librarian Emily Baccomo has found to implement the shared foundation Collaborate is through Breakout activities. The bonus is that she collaborates with her ELA teachers at Lugoff-Elgin Middle School to create these learning experiences to extend their literary studies! Her middle school students consistently have a positive response to challenges that she designs with BreakOut activities.      Recently, Emily partnered with the 8th grade ELA teachers to implement a Cold Case BreakOut challenge based on their Edgar Allen Poe unit. Students used knowledge of their literary studies to crack codes and puzzles in small teams. This teamwork allows students to contribute their critical thinking strengths, as well as their analysis of the Poe texts from their close reading, a significant competency of the Collaborate shared foundation. Since Breakout challenges require a collective effort to problem-solve, students share in actively participating in t

     In my school district, I have noticed several elementary librarians incorporating STEM and makerspace-type activities into their literacy efforts, which exemplify the shared foundation, Explore, in the AASL Framework for School Librarians. I asked Katelyn Smith at Jackson School about how she goes about implementing the competencies of this area in her elementary library programming and I found that her semi-flexible schedule is a big piece of the success.      Katelyn offers a literacy club called “Books and Blocks”, which centers around a read-aloud story. After the story is shared, students use blocks and other objects to design and build something related to the story. This might be related to the conflict or something that would be significant to a retelling of the story. Students work in small teams to brainstorm and collaborate on their build. She emphasizes the key skills of communication and problem solving in this work. Students are coached through their progress, allowi

     Librarian Laura Horton at Camden High School leads students through the critical stages of research at all levels of their high school experience, from freshman career exploration to literary criticism for AP Lit, putting her expertise in the shared foundation of Inquire to work in her library. She enjoys the collaboration with teachers from different departments and implementing the district’s research model, Simple Four, with her high school learners. Facilitating this process with them in the context of their learning is very effective, especially when students are exploring an inquiry that goes deeper into the subject matter and is guided by personal interest. Laura provides valuable instruction to classes on accessing and searching online information databases and websites, such as DISCUS, as well as her robust physical Reference section.      Recently, Seniors in English 4 explored an area of interest to extend their studies of the Middle Ages. Students’ topics ranged from w