No 180

 I closed the library today for students to finish their iReady testing and not that many showed up. I was a bit taken aback. I had maybe 40 all day rather than 40 every period. I got all the checked in books put away and cleaned up the books for the classes coming in tomorrow. I went through all the Chromebooks that had been turned in and I seemed to find ten that were really all right and put them back to available. Then I took the ones that needed to be sent back, put them in piles of what was wrong and sent in a tech ticket on that. I had 33 Chromebooks that need to go back. I had students bring in more Chromecarts. We don't use them anymore and tech doesn't want them. I have 13 in the library workroom now, along with the four carts with the new math books. Three more Chromecarts in the textbook room and there are at least three more coming. I asked if we could move them and kind of got a 'there is nowhere else to put them' response, which really sets off my clutter alarm. I am really hoping they can find a place for them, but I have no idea how. Shipping container maybe???

NonStop

First of all our weekly meeting. Ms. G asked me to make some book talk slips for her kids. She wants the jacket blurb, and the first two pages all on just one page. I had done that last year and I managed to get her the ten she asked for me to get for her. I was so busy today. Classes in every period. I finished getting the math books ready for their teachers. Each book was individually shrink wrapped and I had to unwrap about 152 of them! That's crazy. I managed to get all the books checked in today from classes, but didn't get anything put away. I will do that tomorrow when I have iReady kids in the library. I had four shelves of books come in. I also got some books for another teacher who needed books to test bridge structure weight holds. Since I had some great books I was discarding and he took them. I had to mark out all the stamps and barcodes and mark them withdrawn. Chromebook issues here and there as well. Glad I got to just go home this afternoon.

iReady Help

 Today I was approached by my principal who asked if I could open the library up for iReady testing without our Instructional Coach there and I said, sure! I plunked the testing into my calendar and have Thursday set completely aside for testing. Then I saw the numbers of students that need to complete, about a third of them need to finish! Not sure what I've gotten myself into, but hopefully it'll work out. Had both lunches in today. I found out I could put out my little stools again, and the students loved having them out. I also had a student offer to clean up the Makerspace cart. I put her name in for student kudos for this week. Because of her, other students as got to enjoy using it as well! Finished up that cart of books and yes, they were all withdrawn already, thank goodness. Now I just need to box them up. Emailed a bit on the new math books, and it looks like we won't even barcode them, but let each teacher have a class set. I just want the boxes for my withdrawn books! I put away all those science books I got in yesterday. Checked out books here and there all day. Did some Chromebook things as well. A satisfying day all around!

VolleyBall!

 I got to score my first games in Volleyball tonight! Such exciting games! A real battle back and forth with high numbers from both teams, a real contest! Loved it! It went to almost 6:30! Crazy! Work was a bit quieter and easier! I had a cart in the back room I didn't know if I had withdrawn the books on it or not, so I spent a lot of time working on whether these books were in the computer or not, and so far, I've only found one that was still an active book. Checked in a whole cart and a half of science books from Mr. F. Had both lunches in today. 

Friday the 24th

Classes in all day and those are my favorite times. Ms. G's classes were in all day and what a great end to the week! Got in our new math books, so I checked them out and then with help from a teacher moved all 28 boxes from the complete other side of the school into the library. That was a lot. They are mega math books, huge and heavy. Glad they came and we'll get them some barcodes and out to teachers.

Boxing Day

 Yesterday I took off for appointments. Today I had some catching up to do! My sub did a great job and after I checked through some things, I was pretty happy with how she took care of everything. I guess I am replaceable! Did more work with Chromebooks today and decided I had enough to check out two to every teacher. Did some ordering, had both lunches in. Packed up boxes. I was happy that I got all the Language Network 6th grade books packed up! And all the teacher clean out books as well. I only have one cart with books on it that I still need to go through. And I got new books!! Three sets of Junior Library Guild and one set from Scholastic and a few from summer school program that some Leslie students came for. Did one tiny lamination before I left. A very nice day and students coming in tomorrow!

Classes and Math

Monday was a megathon of Language Arts classes coming in to get books. All day. I checked out so many books! Made me so happy! That was Ms. G's class. I got to help some students as well, and that always makes me happy when I get a chance to suggest a book and the student picks it up! We also got in a ton of books and I didn't even wait for my aide to check them in, I had to get the pile down myself! Only had one lunch in and got a delivery of math books, now to find out how many boxes each of our 6th grade math teachers need and sort through the boxes to find the Volume 1 ones. A very busy and great day!

Tuesday was so much quieter, except for lunches! I think we had all our passes in and then some kids came in from Ms. S's class to return and check out books. It was crazy! I finished up my Mandatory Training for the year and could not believe I didn't get 100% on two quizzes! I have always gotten 100%! Oh well, just shows I'm getting older! Delivered 4 boxes plus 6 books to Ms. R for the 6th grade math books and 12 boxes to Ms. C. Then I had to decide where to put the old ones from last year and where to put the new ones from this year for Volume 2. So I moved over the computer boxes and put the math books beside them which freed up room in the other aisle. I'm also working on packing up the old discarded books. Some from me, others from teachers when they had to clean out their rooms for moving this summer for the science remodel. I even got to read a bit today. All in all, another great day.

Lockdown Friday

 Checked out a ton of books today to Ms. G's class. She had them in for five periods. I went around after each class left and put out new books, pushed books on shelves back together or added a book end. Put away non-fiction books. We also had our lockdown drill today and it happened during Advisory. So I did have a class in and showed them how we do that in the library. Worked on my next book order. Checked out Chromebooks to students who had forgotten theirs at home so they could do their testing. Reading Darius the Great is Not Okay. But glad that it is Friday and I could go home. See you on Monday.

A Wednesday and a Thursday

 I came into work on Wednesday to see police cars, all over the place. On the street I came in on, another pulling into some new houses across the gully, and one that was sitting by Leslie's front door. I passed by him and noted that I had seen several cars and he asked if there was someone who could pull up student names for him and so I took the officer into the building and no one was in the office! So I told him we'd head down to the library where I could pull up names and there were our principal and assistant principal getting ready for our meeting and I turned the officer over to them. The reason they were out in such force turned out to possibly be false information. We did test our lockdown procedures and went into a Level 1 Lockdown with our new announcement system and it worked really well. I did some laminating after the meeting and worked with students all day on tackling Chromebook issues. Either solving it or turning in the one they had for a new one. Had my first lunch in and I must say, I was pretty impressed with the students and how they handled themselves. It went better than I expected. I worked on the old Makerspace cart, taking away the paint and glue and just putting out the stuff I didn't need to worry about getting into the new carpet, but I didn't really have it out, just had the games out. We had a fire drill and I was so busy closing all the fire doors in the library that I totally forgot my mask to go outside and to come back into the building, drats!! 

Thursday was a regular day and I put in my first finished book notice to Ms. Smith on Ancestor Approved. Very nice book! I also got her 20 picture books checked out for next Monday for her next unit. Checked out Chromebooks to many teachers today since we have so many. Found out that I need to make a tech ticket for the returned Chromebooks that have issues, that will take some doing! I have to break them up into groups of the same issue, write the ticket with how many and then Tech will pick them up and bring new ones. I took those that had issues and marked them all as 'out for repairs' just to keep our records straight of what is really available. Checked out books here and there today. Had a math class into the library because the internet wasn't working in their room for the iReady testing they were doing. Worked on more Makerspace things and since I won't let them paint, I found we had a ton of watercolor packs and decided to make take home bags of some instructions, a pack, some watercolor paper. We'll see how it goes! I could not print them in color :( so I'm working on that for my instructions. A not too bad day all together though I am ready for Friday and the promise of rain.

Quieter Day

 No classes in today so I was able to poke my head above the Chromebook waters and get my bearings a bit. I still had students coming in to get Chromebooks all throughout the day. We had a glitch in our district, and I heard even through the country that Google was having problems. I had four students come in saying that they signed in, then the screen just went back to signing in. Luckily I saw in our library chat that everyone was having that problem, so I had students go through with me and Tech had gotten things to where they could sign in again. Yeah Tech! I got Geography books up to our Social Studies teacher today - he was down and I asked him when he wanted them, and he said, 'oh, last Friday' so I was able to find a moment and get them out and checked out and up to him. Had Leadership students come and take some of the Chromebook boxes they had all come in for a project. I boxed up withdrawn books. Took a box of Chromebooks upstairs to our DLC kids. Then their teacher came down and we went through my AEM cart and got the rest their devices for the year. Had students who didn't bring their Chromebook today and wanted one for the day, but policy is that every teacher gets one extra for class, at the moment until we are all done with students, which we are close to, but not quite there yet. Took my aide's attendance on time today (yeah!). And finished up with just a hint of lamination and working with a teacher on grammar resources. Cleaned up my desk a bit. Did some emailing with our JLG rep on the new bid for this year. Made passes for students to come to the library during lunches starting tomorrow. I asked if only five could come. That would be perfect. But really we could 40. Le sigh. 40. I hope I make it through lunch time.

Absent

 Well, my new aide was probably counted as absent today because I totally didn't tell anyone she had arrived! I did send an email to our office manager after I got home, but my bad :(  I hope she didn't get a call to her folks that she was gone! Lots going on today, mostly checking out books! We checked out sooo many books today and still Chromebooks as well. It was pretty constant. I had 8 classes in, two of them to check out Chromebooks and library books as well! Then I also had assorted students come in because they weren't here last week and a couple of lists from teachers who needed Chromebooks for their students. Another very busy day! I got some staff to come in and take some of the boxes the Chromebooks came in (yeah!). I also finally got paper! We were still using the paper from 2019-2020 school year. Quite the accomplishment from the usual practice! I also got in two bigger sizes that we were out of. I'm tired! But the rest of the week should be fairly easy, until Wednesday when I need to let students into the library during lunches again...since classes have up to 36 students, they were excited I could have a bunch more! We'll see! I'll pray for people to reserve the library during lunches 🙏, lol!

One Year Ago

One year ago I fled my home on the Little North Fork River as the canyon filled with flames, driven by wind and we learned that our new-to-us home burned to the ground. We had already been in love with it after only 2 months. My principal had called as we drove out through the flames that had not yet engulfed our home, but we knew, it would soon be gone. She was so kind, but I decided to come in anyway and work so I wouldn't have to think about what was probably happening, but hoped not. Today I waited as I worked on putting the library back together. There was a morning meeting (I was a bit late because I had to wait for a pilot car on our highway as crews cleared out burned out trees - is that a valid excuse for being late??), I worked on putting up books, cleaning up areas, putting up bookends for shelves and bringing out 20 boxes of the Chromebooks our students would pick up the next day. The inspection to say yes, we could move in was at 2pm. I answered questions from teachers, helped herd students that were not sure where to go to the right classroom. An exciting day! Finally, about 3:45, I got the call, we were in, exactly one year after we lost everything. A blessing, a fantastic day. We were so happy!

September 9th - Chromebook handouts. All day. Every period but one. Ten classes came through! Some students even checked out books :)  Tired, happy, ready to head out to my new home after I did some cleaning on the rental we had.

September 10th - More Chromebook checkouts. 13 classes today. I got to eat lunch during the Advisory period since there was a class in the library during that half an hour. And today, straight home!

Great thanks to our Assistant Principal for setting up a sign up sheet so it was orderly and I was able to do it all myself. That was a great tool as one class cycled in, and then out. A few moments and the next class was in. Tired, but 40 boxes, 12 Chromebooks each, 480 were checked out and I do have two more classes on Monday that couldn't fit in Friday. 

6th Graders In the Building

 Today the 6th Graders got the whole school to themselves. I love it when they are here. They are so polite and shorter than I am! Ha! I really did have fun helping them out to find their way in our crazy school. I sent some The Giver  books to another school. Checked out a whole cart of books to Mr. A. Tried to find more Touching Spirit Bear  for another teacher. Sent notices to tech about why did no one rewire my doors so they would automatically open and close every day? So now they stay locked, all the time and I either have to prop them open, or answer a knock every time someone wants in. :( Not very smart. I also struggled with our staff laptops. I couldn't check any of them out. One of our new custodians actually found a box labeled "IA computers" and I was so excited! And again, they are not in the system. We had a technician in to work with some other people and I waylaid him and asked what was up, and he responded that staff computers are not in the system. So I can just give them out. Hummm. I was able to give out some this afternoon, and staff was happy. I also packed up and put the rest of the computers into the boxes that we had found last week also in the room off the library that were most likely computers that were packed up from students last spring and never made it down to technology for their clean up and reboot. I also helped out our new EDGE teacher who was given a home in the room next to the library. He was very appreciative of my support. That was nice. Laminated several things at the end of the day and off to home. All the students will be back tomorrow!

Last Week

I was excited to see the changes in the library after bond work. The carpet is beautiful! The pony wall is gone! The kiosks around a support beam are gone! But for some reason, they put the gates back in - What??? The workers said the orders were to 'remove and re-install them'. Ugh. Right over the new carpet. And my principal and I had said to not put them back up, but apparently, no one told the workers :( They have got to go! I spent the week putting the non-fiction onto the new shelves that I had taken off last year, that was a lot of books! I finally got them all done and I think there is room for all the graphic novels over there. I decided I didn't really want any of the old wooden shelves in there, it does look so nice and clean! I also noticed as I was moving books, the carts made a quiet 'shoosh' noise as they moved over the carpet. That was soooo cool! I love it! We had all teachers in one day for new year meeting, and the next day ALL staff were in the library and there was room for everyone! So very, very cool! I also had 70 boxes of Chromebooks that are to be handed out to students. Twelve Chromebooks in each one with their chargers! They were heavy and I was glad to have my cart. I loaded four boxes at a time and took them into the back. Where they settled nicely into the space on the floor in between where all the non-fiction had resided for months. It was a perfect space! I also took the boxes and put them in order to just make sure that I really did have all 70 boxes, and I did! And they are all in the system and ready to go for check out. A very busy week for the four days (we always get the Friday off before Labor Day weekend) and all is well in the library! Students arrive Tuesday! (which is really today, but I had to wait on this because, well, I was just being lazy).