Farewell!

Definitely an open floor plan now! I remember walking in here to see all the stand alone shelves piled high with textbooks when I first got here, and slowly, box by box got out all the textbooks that were just sitting there. I am really happy with how this has turned out! Spent the day working on getting more books in. Printed up the lost book report and started searching out books. Found about ten. Then went around in teacher rooms looking for books and found about 20 books that were on teacher shelves that really belonged  in the library! And got to print up 3 refunds for students and got fines off the other accounts. I love finding lost books! Ms. C was in again today working on the Chrome carts so I spent the last hour or so pushing all the Chrome carts into the room Mr. M wanted them in except for the two he wanted to have in for the staff meeting Thursday and Friday. I put those in the back room and plugged them in so they'd be ready for then. Collected books that I will read over the summer to take home. Dropped off a student book at Salem Public Library they left in my drop box. Got my desk pretty well cleaned off. Unplugged the gates. Put away the sensitizer and desensitizer. Took the four Chromebooks I got from the LMSS Technology STEM grant and put them in the room I put the Chromecarts in. I labeled each one and even wrote down their serial numbers so they WILL be back in the library in August! Said farewells, turned in my badge and keys. See you August 27th!

Math Curse

Must have been today. I started finishing up the teachers and their items out. Renewing and then I also took the rest of the items that probably disappeared from their room by students and checked them in then made them generic lost. Then for some reason I decided to run the lost math books reports for each of the sets we have. In the first set I found 34 lost and fined math books! By the time I got through the 6th grade sets I had discovered 66 lost books that were sitting on my shelves in the back. I then went through the 7th and 8th grade books and found another 20. That's a lot less work for our bookkeeper finding all that! I also sent an email to our admin, our bookkeeper and our office manager to let them know about it and not to accept money without checking to be sure that there still is a fine on! I would like to blame my aides, but it's also my final responsibility. Glad I did find all that though! It had to be a curse that so many slipped through!

Goodbye to Teachers

I think we have about eight teachers leaving us for many reasons. We had a potluck today to celebrate  not only the end of the year but what they’ve meant to us as well as our school and students. It was nice. I checked in more books today, put some away. Put away the math books that were ready to go back on the shelf. Took the student iPads and got them all set for the summer in their special cart. That took awhile. Signed off a lot of teachers today. Today was their last day. I checked in lots of materials for them and got them put away. I decided back a few years ago to go ahead and take the books on the teacher accounts that disappeared from the classroom off the teacher account and just make them generically lost. So many times teachers bring a class set into their room and the students just take a book home to do some work and never bring it back. That shouldn’t be the teacher’s fault. I was busy all day, got a lot done. Had some great conversations with teachers, but now that they’re gone I’ll probably get more done! Two more days to go, Monday and Tuesday then I’m off for the summer.

Project Disaster to Meeting Master

Started the day with checking in the books from the locker clean out. Wanted to be sure they got all done. Students had a half day so I had them help me a little bit. With the carts back from locker clean out I finished moving all the fiction books over today! I had some incentive, Mr. M informed me that they would be having a meeting in here tonight! Oh no! Project Disaster, books all over the place, Chrome carts all over the place! I moved some of the carts so I had room to move, had some of my aides help me move the weeded books onto carts. I had all the books shelved and the weeded books all in the back, tables in, Chrome carts all lined up against the back wall in order. I was very impressed with myself for getting that all done, and yes! Another 7 mile day! I am so glad that the move is all over! I’ll probably have to worry about withdrawing books when I come back in the fall. I hope Mr. M is pleased that I got all of those books cleaned up and gone!

Another Seven Miles

Yes,  these last two days I've put 7 miles on my Fitbit just at work! Resetting the library books. Finished the move on the non- fiction this morning. Checked in teacher resources they've been bringing in. Had my aides working on putting the math books in numerical order we haven't done yet from getting them turned in. I set the grid, they put them in order then I put them in the back and bring out the next set. Restarted setting the fiction on the shelves, got all under the windows done and started on the main wall. I forgot about the books on the counter in the old computer lab, and finally remembered that's where the Mc's were! Had to realign the shelves for their size since the non-fiction are usually taller. Hoping we'll get that all done tomorrow. Had our last locker clean out this afternoon. Had my aides take the carts out and about them I collected them. A few books, only about 2 shelves worth. I saw some books I knew were missing, yeah! Teachers started bringing in the Chrome Carts for their reset over the summer. We had all but one when I left. Mr. M was tracking them down! Off to a concert tonight, Brian Culbertson at the Elsinore. Ready for a relaxing evening!

Photo Journal

Thanks to my PA and an amazing assistant who gave me 3 hours of their time each to make today happen! Thank you!!!

About the Same

About the same as Friday! We did Spanish books check in today and I also added notes onto the books that didn’t have their textblock number recorded yet. When the books originally came in, the barcode stickers also had numbers of the books (like #1, #2, etc) and those numbers were written on the ends of the textblock. If a student asked “I did turn in my book, could you check?” It was easy to look up the record, see it was book #3, and find it or not without opening every single book to read the barcode. I had done that a year back with our science books (so handy with them at 14 different sections with about 310+/- books for each section! We don’t have near that many Spanish books but it could come in handy. I also did more weeding for the fiction to get some space. I’ve gained about nine shelves with weeding and I’m just through the ‘F’s’. It is tedious to make decisions on every book! Some are easy, some are not quite so easy. Also took in some more iPads today and have to have the high school ones ready for pick up in the morning tomorrow up in the office. It’s our last Monday, last full period day. Assemblies for Tuesday and Wednesday and half day for students on Thursday! The days are counting down!

Checking, Shelving & Weeding

I had all the carts from locker clean out in my office last night so I had my aides start checking things in this morning. We were on an assembly schedule so periods were only about 40 minutes long. Had them check in books, sort the textbooks into piles. I put the math books away, they did the science books. I took out Spanish books and put notes on them for the number that was written on the textblock. Sent off more books to their homes. Got all our fiction books put away and then started to weed. I had 128 pages of books that had been checked out less than one time in the last 5 years! Since we're moving books next Tuesday, thought I'd get a jump on clearing up the fiction, no matter how much I thought I'd like to keep it! Time to keep what the kids want, the good stuff, award winners and diverse books. Already have four shelves of books to discard (meaning withdrawn, offered to my teachers, then to other schools, then to students) and haven't finished the 'B's' yet.  What a project I've started! And I did some laminating today. Favorite bookmark I did? Someone made a hatchet shape bookmark for  Hatchet by Paulsen. Made me smile.

iPads and Locker Clean Out

That’s about what today was all about! I had to check in about 36 iPads and a few Chromebooks that were checked out to students on a special program. They are about $300+ each, so I wanted to be sure that I had everything down correctly. So not only did I check in, but also created a spreadsheet to document each student what they had and what they turned in with it - headphones, charger and cord. Then worked on matching up each report, what I had with what the computer said. A few problems, but good for the most part. Then I had to off load carts today that had the books from the reset on them so we had carts for the locker clean out during 7th period. Got that done. My aides all worked up in another teacher’s room today so that was good. They got a lot of work done for her. My only aides that worked for me were the 7th period aides to get ready for the locker clean out! We got two full carts of books and some I recognized for being lost or overdue. Hopefully all will be well as they get checked in!

Chrome Carts

“Chrome Carts? Oh, Chrome Carts? Wherefore art thou?”  That was my heartfelt cry today as I tried to find out why one teacher had #9, when she was supposed to have #4 and where did #4 end up and how to flip around the carts so everyone was happy and had what they needed for the lessons for the day. I had about five teachers all in trying to figure out how they could get their hands on a Chrome Cart. Started to get ready to roll out overdue/lost book notices today. Did a lot of email. Got registered for a webinar on new diversity books. I made a bunch of notes for my sub today, off to take care of some personal business this afternoon.

eBooks & Notices

So I had a student come in to try and check out an eBook from our Axis360 program. Apparently, you should be able to be on your Chromebook, logged in and be able to get to your eBook easily. But it wouldn’t let him log on. So I called tech and we tried a few options. Nothing. Then he told us to call LMSS, and we tried a few things, still nothing. Then they sent a tech to the building and he worked with the student. Nothing. He called a few people, nothing. Finally he got ahold of one of the higher ups who said that the student had only been using the initial password they start out with every year. Since he hadn’t been on a district computer and only the Chromebook, it hadn’t asked for him to change his password for the year. So I called him down and we got him on a hard drive, it asked him to change his password and voila! Now he could check out eBooks. But now I wonder, if students don’t go to a district computer and change their password, then they have no access to our eBooks. That would make me very sad. Then we had issues with my printer not wanting to print my overdue/lost notices. I was trying to get 4 on a page to save printer paper and it just kept getting stuck on spooling. I finally ended up doing just two to a page and that worked, but oh, the paper.....I spent the rest of the afternoon putting in the actual period of the day for the Language Arts class they were in so the teachers had less work handing them out. 

One More Monday to Go!

After today there is only one more Monday to go for our students! We are really getting down to the wire on the end of the school year. I went through all my STEM maker kit stuff I ordered and got at the meeting on Friday. Transistors, jumper wires, LED’s, another power pack and it was fun to fill up the bins I had! Also sent the word out on the students that had to turn in their iPads from the district, especially those who will be going to other schools next year so they can be picked up and taken there before the schools all let out for the summer. I put our tables back in order since the science class is now back in their room. Checked in lots of books. Did three summer opportunities for reading book talks in Ms. K’s room today. She asked me to come back tomorrow for one more class. Cleaned up the back room and as I was cleaning, heard this drip...drip..drip.. so Mr. M was getting ready for the staff meeting and I asked him to come over, and the ceiling tiles were wet and I was thinking oh, oh. There goes our ceiling just like in Mr. H’s room that made him have to use the library for a week! But, it turns out, it was the upstairs boys bathroom. Someone had plugged the sink up and left the water running. Oh boy. I took some of the books off that were up there and placed a trash can under where the drip might come through. Did some laminating for teachers and for me. Both lunches in and lots of Chromecarts out roaming around! Eleven working days to go!

Now it Is!

Had my review today and also a meeting, on a Friday, after work at the school. Finished covering the new paperbacks today. Got all the books on display off the top and bottom shelves and put away. Took in math books for Ms. C’s classes today. Did the official, student hands you a book, you check it in, then call the name displayed to make sure that was their book. Some of classes had the very expensive $98 math books, so wanted to be sure they got in correctly! Might be back later, might not. Two Fridays to go!