Making the most of a dumb schedule

We had a teacher day today. First, I just want to put a reminder out there that we only have school Mon-Thursday (yes we have every Friday off) but we are a year round school, NOT on a balanced calendar. That being said, we didn't have school on Monday since it was part of our Christmas vacation, we were off Jan. 1 because it was New Year's Day so today is a teacher day.

We have students tomorrow. Do the math. Yes. You are right.

We are going to have kids tomorrow, just 1 single day, and then we all have the three day weekend. Yup.

I have no idea who the brain trust was behind this genius scheduling but yes, it is stupid. Kids in general are hard to get in the mind set of school after a long holiday but OUR kids at Alcatraz are even worse. And then to get them for just a day? Not the best thing I've ever heard in my life.

Tomorrow is going to be a very looooooooooooong day, I just have a gut instinct about it!

Anyway, today was a teacher day. All the certified folks in the building and all the administrators were scheduled to be in a training. So that left me, 2 secretaries, our IT guy, and an administrative assistant to do stuff in the building.

I found stuff to do. Part of my job is to give reading assessments to incoming students and do the new student orientation so I decided to get a jump on tomorrow. I got 6 of our new kids together and did all their testing and their orientation. Yay me for being ahead!

Now I'm ready for anything weird that could- and probably will- happen tomorrow. After all, I work at "Alcatraz".

Librarian in action,
Mags

Help! The library aide needs aid!

I've ordered tons of new books lately and it's been fun getting the shipments in!

What's not fun is that my student library assistant was released from our program and went home; now I'm swamped!

I don't think I realized how much she did, as far as the day to day stuff goes. She processed all our magazines and newspapers and put away all the books. Then if time allowed, she would also cover new books, do any cleaning and straightening and design my bulletin boards. Now I get to do it all! Holy cow, there aren't enough hours in the day!

So, I'm off to straighten shelves and put away about 100 books!

My fingers are crossed that I get another helper soon!

Mags

The library computer system network & my day

Well, I guess I should come out and say it: my library software seems to be working. I'm afraid to admit that because I don't want the technology gods to smite me and the computer down in the morning.

Today I had a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng day. The only data I lost was one day's worth but it was the day all the classes had 'library day' so all books checked in and out on that Tuesday was lost. So about 200 transactions were lost.

So, today I went class to class and asked each kid for his or her library books. Lots had books with them or in their lockers and I took those. Then I pulled a fast one on the kids who told me they left them in their residential halls. I played dumb and said, "Well, I don't have a list or a computer in front of me. What are the titles of the books you have out?" and I wrote them down.

Then after I did that, I returned all the books I collected, which was about 150 items. Then I ran an "items out list" and went to the shelves. I went through the list and found about 60 tomes and checked all those in.

Then we put all those books away.

Then I ran another "items out list" and checked it against what the kids said they had out. I found 2 errors of books being checked out that no one claimed. I marked those as lost in the computer and checked all the books out to the kids who said they had them.

I then emailed all the residential parents and asked them to check the halls for random books. Then I emailed specific res parents to tell them what each kid had out and asked them to send the books back with the students either after school today or first thing in the morning.

I also planned this week's art club, went to a staff meeting, entered 11 new students in my patron data base, processed 12 new magazines and replaced 4 days of old newspapers with new newspapers, supervised after school t-shirt painting and unpacked 3 shipments of NEW BOOKS, which was the best part of my day.

Whew!!!!!!!!!!! I'm tired.

And this thing better work in the morning or I'm quitting my job and joining the circus or the Peace Corps, whomever takes me first.

Mags

(and from now on, at the end of each day, I'm going to run a list of "materials check out" list! And Once time a month I'm going to run my shelf list!! I never want this to happen again!)

Gone baby gone

Yesterday was not a good day. Oh shit are the only 2 words that come to mind.

Yesterday afternoon, the program I use to operate the entire library froze up. Weird technology stuff happens all the time, right? I try to do all these fixes and none of them work. I do the ultimate and shut my entire system and machine off and start all over again with a reboot. Only this time when the software opens and I click on the tab marked "circulation" I get an error message. As a matter of fact, I get an error message over and over and over again on each tab I click.

I call the school system's head librarian to see if she knows what's up. I tell her the error code and she flips out and tells me to call the software company's tech support. I call tech support and they tell me the error code means 1 of 2 things:
1- human interaction has screwed my system up
2- the system needs rebooted from our server or our network.
And what does the error code mean, you might be asking. Oh... well... the error code means that the library program has been removed/ deleted.

Yes, you read that right. GONE. G.O.N. E. As in no longer there. As in ALL the library data has been deleted, removed, vanished.

As in all records of books, of the patrons, of the circulation history, or patron holdings, EVERYTHING is gone. All I have are the books on the shelf. There is no record of them in any system anywhere.

Oh. My. Fucking. Shit.

This means that if our IT staff can't find the program on the server or on the network, then I have nothing. I will have to hand enter each and every book, one at a time, all over again. I will have to reconfigure all the software and the settings, enter all the patron information as well as the books.

To make matters worse, once I told my principal what happened, he told me that they caught kids messing around with the program and he thinks they might have deleted it when they got caught doing what they weren't supposed to do, and they accidentally deleted the library stuff while deleting their own stuff, trying to cover their tracks.

We called the IT department at work and they are seeing what they can do. They're trying to see if it exists on a server or network somewhere.

I can't even fathom what will happen next...

Mags

Getting the books on the shelf

I ordered 66 new books and have been working on processing them because my kids LOVE new books. I have to keep the new books hidden during processing or the kids will come in between every period, asking if they're ready. I love that they love new books. I love new books, too, so I totally understand!

Processing these new books is time consuming and tedious. Because I'm in a school library and I'm lucky to even have money to buy books so I won't complain, but none of the programs I use even "talk" to each other so I have to do repeated steps.

• After unpacking the books, I have to enter them all into our computer system so I have an inventory of my collection, and so they're able to circulate (I have to enter all the data like author, title, ISBN number, a bar code number, the price, and subject)
  
• print the bar code labels and apply them to call the correct books
• place a spine sticker to delineate between fiction and non
• place a spine sticker for genre
• stamp with our "property" stamp in three places and also place a "date due" slip in each
• cover all the books with either laminate or slip covers
• check a different database to see if the books are part of the Reading Counts programs; If they are then I have to sticker the spine AND print a point code label AND affix each label to the correct book

That's just to get them all circulation ready!! I have a student helper for 3 hours a day but she can't do anything on the computer so I do that work while she does all the other steps. I'm happy to say that the only thing she and I have left to do is cover them. I'd like to have them all shelf ready by Tuesday morning since that's "library day."

When I order new books, I need to focus on what the kids want or would like. This is an interesting process. I've talked to different librarians and there doesn't seem to be any perfect way to order books for a high school library.

I always make sure I order books that are part of a series.We have some series that aren't popular and we have the first couple books but others are HUGE so I make sure I stay on top of when the "next one" comes out. I order what's popular among teens and there are publisher magazines to help with that. I watch a couple best seller lists. There's a good list for librarians that's called "adult books for young adults" so I buy from there. Of course I take student recommendations!!! They give me a title and 99% of the time I can order that book. I want to keep a collection of books that the kids WANT to read. Because we're a prison type of school and our students live here, there's LOTS of time to read so I want to have things they're interested in.

Also because we're a prison school my students want to read about things they know. And that's sad. My biggest requests are books about drugs, gangs, rape, sexual abuse, killing, abuse, booze, cutting and suicide. Yeah. And what's really scary and sad, is that I have a large collection of fiction in all these subject areas. Sadly enough, authors are writing it because it sells. My kids also like "normal" teen stuff like sports, romance, vampires, sci-fi, Stephen King (he seems to be his own genre).

Three things frustrate me about teen lit:

1. everything seems to be a series. There are more series for teens than stand alone novels and that's a financial nightmare for librarians
2. vampires are all the rage and kids seems to hear about these books and want to read them. Gee thanks Twilight. There's Morganvillie Vampires, Vampire Academy, Vladamir Tod, Blue Bloods, Immortals, and House of Night series. This is just what I can think of off the top of my head. And this is what I have in MY library!!!
3. It's hard for me to find stuff that boys want to read. I do LOTS of research for them.

I always have to remember that I can't order books for ME. Okay, that seems like a nobrainer but as a bibliophile, it's easy to sit and read a hundred book reviews in a month and suddenly have a list of books "I" want to read. I have to make sure that every book that comes in is something the KIDS will want.

I have to say that I think I ordered books for "me" once. I ordered the Steve Jobs bio. I do want to read it and I've had 3 kids ask for it. I know it has about 700 pages so I probably won't have a lot of kids actually read it but I will. The other book I bought is The Night Circus. I started this book at our public library and didn't get it finished and WANT to finish it so I ordered it. There are a lot of things in that novel that will appeal to my students but I really got it for me. I'm bad. I won't make it a habit and I am sorry and I'll probably buy $25 worth of books out of my own pocket to make up for it at some point, but for now.... well, yeah. Shame on me.

The other thing that I found that was funny is that a kid asked me if we had the Ranger's Apprentice (by John Flanagan) books. We didn't. I did some research and decided to order the series. I had them on the counter and hadn't gotten them hidden for processing yet. I am NOT kidding- I had 9 boys say they read those and they were AWESOME. WHAT?!? NINE?!? I told all those guys that they need to think of things they've read and keep the recommendations coming. Those 9 guys told other guys and now that series has a wait list. I feel like I should order 2 copies of each of the first two books to get them circulating before they lose interest. There are 11 of these so far so they should keep busy for awhile. And volume 3 is on back-order! Ack!

So Monday I'll be a book covering maniac!

your bibliophile,

Maggie

No Havest Party for this girl!

I think changing Halloween celebrations in schools to Harvest parties is stupid. There. I said it. It infuriates me that some closed minded dorks can't cope with the idea of Halloween. Oh, I think if little Johnny in 1st grade came home and told his mom that at the school Halloween party they sacrificed a live virgin, held a seance to contact a dead principal and drank the blood of a goat, I might raise my eyebrows--- and realize this had nothing to do with Halloween. But kids in ghost costumes are forbidden? No skull decorations because they're the sign of the devil? Plu-eeze!

What got me thinking about this is I'm decorating the school library for Halloween. Now, I work at facility for youth where they've been court ordered. We're just one step away from prison/ jail. We are also a very CHRISTIAN facility. I work in the PUBLIC school library. I have to consider I'm in a public school that's strictly for highly at risk youth in a Christian setting. Oh yeah, don't I just fit so well there?

Anyway! I'm trying to decorate and someone mentioned that I couldn't have Halloween decorations because it's "not Christian." I seriously bit my tongue and summoned all my will power to keep my mouth shut. And I wished I could've channeled Lilith!

Normally when faced with a comment like that, the first thing I want to do is buck the system. Of course. I know, I'm officially 40 years old and I still want to rebel at the first sign of being pushed- you'd think I'd outgrow it but still to no avail. And normally I think it's far easier to ask for, or even beg for, forgiveness rather than to ask for permission. But since I had already pissed off people about Banned Book Week (this will be an upcoming post!), I just thought, "Screw it" and I asked my principal.

And he didn't care if I decorated for Halloween, he didn't care what sort of decorations as long as they weren't "gross" and were "tasteful", and he didn't care if I called it Halloween. He asked me to not use skulls because that's a campus wide rule. So, HA!

I've been making Halloween happen. I have jack-o-lantern window clings, and spider webs, with spider rings. I have a bulletin board dedicated to our authors of the month: Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King. I have a pumpkin full of candy. We have a scarecrow and tombstones. I'm working on table top lanterns with battery operated candles. We have a Raven, a'la Poe. I'm even planning a Poe presentation and a little bit of information about All Hallow's Eve.

So I'm gonna Halloween it up! And I plan on going in costume on the appropriate day! I thought about wearing a costume a day, or least a variety of masks and hats daily but I think I'll wait and do that the week before and on the Big Day. I think I'm even going to see if I can host a Halloween Library Party on Oct. 31.

Any chance to eat candy, wear a tiara in public, and rebel against Big Brother!

Nothing mild mannered about this librarian,
Maggie

Knifty Knitting

Today was a good activity day at school. We had our first Art and Lecture series speaker of the 2011-2012 school year- Curley!!!

She talked to the kids about knitting, crocheting and other types of yarn work. She showed them examples and THEN she demonstrated how to knit on a loom. All of the kids in attendance had a chance to make a sock hat or a scarf. Here are looms:


We had 2 kids make scarves and 6 make hats; thanks to my cousin R, Daddy-O and Curley for all their extra yarn and spare looms so there was enough to go around! Of course they didn't have time to finish their projects today so they can come in and work after school every day until their all done. I'm going to take pictures and will show their work when everyone is finished, next week of course!

It was a really nice group of kids; I couldn't have hand picked a better bunch. AND we had 2 girls and all the rest were boys! For knitting! How cool is that?

Now they all want to make blankets. And two boys asked me if Curley would please come back and teach them how to crochet an afghan.

She was a huge hit (they all thought she was my mom!) and want her to help with art club!

I try and hold a luncheon each month and have a speaker come in and talk to the kids while they eat and then the speaker lets the kids do something "artsy". Last school year we had jewelry making, cake decorating and card making. I plan on expanding this year- we have a potter coming in, and a professional artist who will teach something with watercolor (I have a visual image of something like this happening:)


Should be a fun year! I like it when a plan comes together! Who knows what next month will bring!?

Maggie

New bulletin board

Here's the new bulletin board I've made for our school library. I know it's for high school students but they still need some color and some fun!

And for every kid who passes an AR Test this month, they get a mini "bit-o-honey" candy!

Book lovin' nerd,
Mags

Whew---- one week down!

I can't believe I've been away from here all week. I am so sorry, if anyone cares! We went back to school on Monday and since then it's been go- go- go!

Mac is getting ready for college, along with all my back to school drama. He's a lovable pain in the ass right now.

Daddy-O has another ear infection, which worries me.

Lest we forget the insufferable heat attacking the Midwest right now which sucks, and getting into the routine of getting up early, going to bed at a normal time, cooking, chores and financial worries, it's been a looooooooooooong week.

I was so ticked off on Monday because we have some "old guard" teachers who think our new discipline policies are stupid and won't comply. We have new teachers who are learning. Our construction isn't done yet. Just lots of back to school issues, like so many other schools suffer.

I also took a 3rd part time job- I'm overseeing lunch period for our students who live off the grounds but attend our school. I'll do this everyday, and get paid $15 per 90 minutes (or $10/ hour!). I have 4 kids, and they're pretty good. I also decided to oversee the literary magazine, co chair the prom, be the sponsor for the art club, and direct the school play in the fall and the musical in the spring. Yes, I have lost my ever-loving mind. The only things that could save me from this fate would be a handsome Irishman to whisk me off to the Emerald Isle, marrying Johnny Depp, a new job, or death.

I also got in a new shipment of new books, had to do bulletin boards, schedule all the English classes to visit the library, oversee all the new student testing, AND I have girl's PE locker room duty. Oh, and I met with students who wanted to check out books- you know, regular library stuff which is... oh, just MY JOB!

Sorry I was out of the blogging loop. I'll try to get back in the groove. I sure did love my month off, and miss it already. But I really love my job and is was good to be back with my students!!!

Hope you had a good week. Tomorrow is going to be "read other blogs while doing laundry" day.

Kisses,
Maggie

Let the school year commence

I'm back at school. Today. Right now!!! (okay, if you're reading this after 3:45pm EST then I'm not there, but I was otherwise!) Today and tomorrow are teacher days and we have students on Wednesday and Thursday. We are now officially starting year- round school. We also now no longer have school on Fridays. This week is a 2 day with student week.

I can't believe my summer vacation is over. I'm working on "blogger appreciation gifts" and don't have them all done yet (but be watching your mail!). I have a stack of books not read. I have two quilts not finished. I have recipes not tried. Ugh. The list goes on and on.

I'm going to be really good at being retired.

But on the good side, I do love my job so it will be good to get back into a routine and to see the kids. I have some magic up my sleeve for the library and I have a nice, long, fun list of things I want to do this month with the kids. Well, the next few months, anyway! So, it's not really all about complaining about the end of summer,

I prefer to think of it as being in mourning. I have on my favorite black t-shirt...

Mags

Random stuff in my head on a Tuesday

During the first week of Weight Watchers (my weigh in was today), I lost 2 pounds. Feh. Daddy-O and Mac together lost weight equaling a newborn. GOOD for THEM!

XRay Girl still isn't talking to me. It's breaking my heart.

Today we finished inventory of all the fiction and all the new books. Since I had no idea what I was doing and had to start over last week, it wasn't bad that it only took 4 days for the fiction. Tomorrow, I start the non-fiction. I'm going to let kids start checking out books in fiction, since they're driving me crazy!

ITSam is working like hell to get me to take him back. It hasn't worked.

Mac still doesn't have a summer job, darn it!! He's applied about 10 places but no luck yet.

I showed Casablanca to my summer school film class (it's an all girl class) and they "didn't get it." WTF is there not to get? Ugh! The youth of today!!

I'm psyched about meeting Lilith in Northern Civilization tomorrow!!! Talking, dinner and book browsing are on the agenda. And I called Archiver's and she and I can work on our scrapbook projects if we want, even though it's a Wednesday!!

Why does Vanna White wear ballgowns to flip letters? And the letters don't even flip anymore, just touch and they light up.

I got some new shoes and they look awesome. Pictures will be forthcoming.

Mags

Begin again

I got special permission and Alcatraz School hired a friend/ co- worker to work in the summer, part time, to help me with inventory of the library.

Monday I followed all the directions and we divided the list between us and got started.

That's when trouble began. We found all sorts of books that were ON the shelves but that were NOT on the inventory list. I could take one of those books and search it in my library software and it's listed there and all the data about it is correct. I can find these books by title, author, bar code label and often by keyword. But for whatever reason they were not coming up on the master list. Hmmm.

Then it went from one or two books to.... 89. And we only have 6 letters of the alphabet finished. Houston, we have a problem.

So, I called my school system's head librarian and asked her if she could help me. I explained the problem and she had be click around and she couldn't help me over the phone. So she came to see me this afternoon.

She clicked around and did some checking and lo and behold, no one has done an inventory in my school's library since 2006. OMG! 2006?!? Seriously? Well, shit!

Then she hit me with the bad news. If someone had been doing this inventory correctly all along, then printing a master list would've worked out, so I was doing it right, technically. BUT since no one had bothered to inventory for 5 years, I now have to do this the hard way. I have to take every book off the shelf and scan it in our system, in a program labeled, oddly enough: "Inventory". Then, once that is done, I have to run a missing book report to see what is missing and wade through that book by book.

And because we are not fancy nor technologically up to date in our library, I don't own a wireless hand scanner. So, I will have to take every book off the shelf, carry them to the desk top computer, scan each book, then put them away.

Shit.

So tomorrow morning we are starting back over from the beginning.

Gee, this is such a *GREAT* week! Ugh!

Mags

The rest of the story about my change in schedule

I believe when I last told you, I explained how my hours for summer got all re-arranged and my days became longer to compensate for the building re-construction.

There's more to the change in my schedule. My school, starting on August 1, is going to year around school. We will be at school 4 days a week, with every Friday off. This is a cool thing. We still get typical teacher breaks like spring break/ Thanksgiving/ Christmas/ Labour & Memorial Days/ July 4th. We are also going to be given a three week break in July, which will be our "summer vacation." This is all good, in my personal opinion. I don't mind. I mean, hello- A THREE DAY WEEKEND EVERY SINGLE WEEK?!? Com'on- that really freakin' rocks!

But.... ah yes. There's always a "but."

Remember, I'm not a "teacher". I'm just the librarian so I'm considered 'non-essential school staff'. Because of this, I have the same holidays and days off as a teacher except for summer. My job makes me work some in the summer, which if you read the post from last Friday, then you know what I'm talking about.

The biggest issue because we went to year around, my principal told me, would make adjustments to my school schedule starting August 1. All because now we have to do something about the part of my job that was summer hours. When the new schedule starts, my summer hours weren't considered. So I was given three options:
1- work longer school days next year
2-work 4 hours on 35 Fridays out of the year
3- take a $1200 pay cut.
Did I mention how excited I was about Fridays off? And a pay cut? Really? I make minimum wage based on a 30 hour week with NO health benefits and one of my choices is a $1200 PAY CUT?!? W.T.F.????

That pissed me off to no end. So, I figured out the math (Don’t ask. I’ve just started referring to it as the "Librarian Formula of Mathematical Thinking") and next year my school hours will be
8-11:30am & 12:30-3:45 pm, on Mondays- Thursdays.

Basically, I had to add 45 minutes to my school day for it to work so I shortened my lunch time to a 60 minute lunch (instead of 90) and will just work over 15 minutes longer than I do now. On days when I have to at school for meetings I can either accumulate comp. time, take longer lunches or leave early. I was NOT working on Fridays unless I just had to. And I was not going to take a pay cut.

I appreciate that I was given a choice and also allowed to make my own schedule but it just sucks that since I'm paid so little and do so much, they couldn't just roll it all in together and consider it a pay "raise."

What was really frustrating is that the assistant principal is trying to come up with extra things for me to do to get me more money- like sponsor clubs and activities during my library hours- do double duty. Then I have my Principal hitting me with this. I don’t think the APrincipal knew because it went against all he was trying to set up. In the discussion with the AP we looked at the possibility of some of the clubs/ activities could be on Fridays but it WOULD BE FOR EXTRA PAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not to just get in my hours.

It's all just very frustrating.

All work and no play makes a cranky...
Maggie

A version of "Who's On First"?

I found a stack of shelves in the library and decided to gain more space, I would add an extra shelf into each book case; there was enough space to do that and one thing a library usually needs about as badly as more money is more room.

So last week I had a student assigned to me for half days for a week since his work study/ job training boss was on vacation. This kid started shifting the books for me to make room for the extra shelf.

With the rhythm we had going, he would just pull an empty shelf from the book case next to him. When he finally go to the point where he had to use a shelf from the stack, I hear the dreaded words, "Miz O'Sullivan, we have a problem."

Oh crap. Words no one likes to hear.

Apparently, the shelves in storage don't fit. They're were 3 inches too wide. I am not kidding. The kid had moved books on 5 shelves, about 1000 or more books, and now we had a huge 3 foot gap with no shelves.

So......... I took books off a display bookcase and used those since they fit. Now the display bookcase has no shelves in it.

I then called our maintenance department and ordered 5 new shelves and filled out a work order. The secretary in that department said it would take 5-6 weeks to built. Around that time my principal came in the library and wanted to know where the shelves were. I said it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission and he laughed. I said I was taking care of it and he said no problem.

It all sounds like it was taken care of, right?

A few hours later my principal comes in and the conversation goes something like this:

him: I think it's time to ask for that forgiveness.
me: ok. But..... uh, how come?
him: you want to spend about $3000.
me: I do?
him: where are you going to put 5 shelves? why do you need 5 shelves?
me: [I gesture to the bookcase which happens to be next to a large empty wall] Over there.
him: well, why five?
me: because that's what's going to fill the space. Why would that cost so much?
him: because of all the matierlas and time involved.
me: I think if someone gave me wood and a saw, I could do that in a weekend.
him: well, I think it's unnecessary.
me: so, you want me to leave it empty?

Now the blank look comes on his face. I asked him, "okay, wait a minute. What are you talking about?" He really wasn't sure.

Apparently, to save you all from the rest of this debacle, the secretary in maintenance thought I wanted 5 BOOKCASES not just 5 shelves, the plain old planks. So she told that to Principal.

When he found out I just wanted 5 replacement shelves, he was fine with that. And glad I wasn't trying to spend $3k.

It's still going to take 5-6 weeks, though...

Gee, I'm glad we got that settled.

Maggie

Random Hump Day Musings

In our community, we have a pizza place what has a Godfather theme to their business name. Godfather as in the mafia movie. What I hate is that the radio DJ who does the commercials does a TERRIBLE, and I mean TERRIBLE, impression of Brando as the Godfather. If I owned the place I would wall and just tell them "no" and to stop.

Tonight is opening night of Mac's school play! It's his first huge lead so I'm excited to see how well it goes for him. He's a bit of a diva about it all so I hope his performance lives up to his ego.

I'm adding a shelf here and there to the library bookcases. Well, let me rephrase that, I would LIKE to do that. I can find the extra shelves but the pins that actually hold the shelves are gone. Really. Who takes the pins? And I'll be honest here. We don't think it's the kids. Someone on the library committee who's been here since the invention of dirt said she wouldn't be surprised if a previous librarian- 2 or 3 ago- tossed them in the trash. Seriously?!?

Gasoline is so expensive right now that I put $30 in my tank this morning. I was so on Empty that the fuel light was on. And $30 filled it only half way. Prohibitive. It really irks me, and it's completely unnecessary.

My school didn't use all of their scheduled calendar snow days so I get this Friday off. Yup, no school at all. Just a day to hang out. Thank you to the day off gods! Did I mention Mac will be at school all that day? I'm going to sleep in and read and just be a bum.

I can't believe it could snow tomorrow. Not nice.

Princess did some work in her art class and it's been submitted to a local art school competition. I'll be visiting the gallery! She's one of the top contenders for ribbons in the categories she's entered in- I'll let you know what she wins!

Speaking of Princess and weather, she's running distance races in track and her meet is tomorrow. Of course, I'm going to watch and cheer her on but it's supposed to be a high of 31 degrees with possible snow. Today it's a high of 62 with a chance of rain. I'm so thrilled about standing outside in that weather tomorrow. Not.

One thing I miss from when I lived in Northern Civilization, Armpit, and even in the Wild West is that I always had a group of folks with whom I met for "Thirsty Thursday" festivities. I miss Thirsty Thursdays at the local watering hole. I don't even have a local watering hole.

The run around

This is stupid but it's driving me crazy.

We have a program, that we pay for, through Scholastic called Reading Counts (RC). The very basics are that Scholastic gives books a reading level and a point value. Kids take a 10 question multiple choice quiz on a computer over a book. If they pass, the get points. If they fail, they get nothing. Teachers can use this tool however they want. It's a K-12 program. There are some more ins and outs but this is the general gist.

Here at my school, our English teachers tell students they get extra credit for reading books and passing the quizzes. Our library does some incentives, too, which is awesome for the kids. (One milestone is 500 point- an off campus pizza party for the student, a staff member and a friend!)

To keep current on the quizzes, schools have two options: 1) subscribe to the Scholastic online service that automatically uploads the updates as available; or, 2) receive in a CD in the mail and manually load the quizzes into a school's local quiz bank.

Because of costs and our school's situation in our school system, we have the "CD in the mail" option. Since I started this job, we've not received any CD's.

I will say it was the middle of February before I figured this out. So I started making calls to some people here in our buildings to see if the CDs we delivered to somewhere else on campus; they would have the old librarian's name so I thought someone might have taken it upon themselves to deliver CD-ROMs to any of the IT departments. No. They also didn't go to our administrators nor were they sent back to the company- another thought I had since there was a name change in librarians.

I called Scholastic and left a voice mail with our rep. Four days later I've heard nothing so I try again. Still nothing that week.

I call Scholastic and get bounced to four different people before I get sent to Customer Service. The operator tells me we have the online service. I tell her we do not. She says it must be a mistake and says she'll send the discs out and I should receive them in 5-7 business days. Now, remember, I'm wanting the updates for January thru March.

On the 7th business day I get a message from a nameless rep at Scholastic that says we belong to the online service and to call their 800 number for help if I need it.

WE DO NOT BELONG TO THE ONLINE SERVICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I call and actually get MY school's rep on the phone. I explain to her. She says the computer says.... you guessed it, we belong to the online service. I tell her okay fine and ask her to walk me through it. We start the process and Lo and behold I can't get online to the information because I don't have an online account.

After many clicks and being put on hold at her end, she comes back and tells me to start doing title searches of new books that were added to the online quiz bank in the last 3 months. She gives me about 10 titles and I have access to none of those quizzes.

Her answer is that she needs to "further investigate" to see what's wrong. She's supposed to call me back tomorrow.

I don't think she needs to investigate. Someone just needs to mail me the damn discs. As I told her, I have 2 years worth of CDs in a box so I have no idea what the damn problem is now.

Impressed I am not,
Maggie

So I did learn a new craft after all!

In my list of 40 things to do before I turn 40 I said I wanted to learn a new craft. I tried a knitting class, and albeit I went one time, I was REALLY not successful! However, yesterday I organized a program in our school library on card making.

When I planned this event it never dawned on me that I could use it as a 40 Before 40 item!

I had a woman from the community who is a card maker and does some beautiful work be my guest speaker. She volunteered to come in during our 90 minute lunch period and give a brief presentation about card making and then she would let the audience members each make a card.

She and I met in advance and planned that we would have 8-10 kids with about 3-4 chaperons. I got a list of supplies, which I bought and/or got donated. I provided lunch. The kids had to sign up ahead of time and write a paragraph about why they should be picked to participate.

In the end we had a group of 6 people in attendance. The presenter gave her little Power Point about card making, the history and her own interest. Then we all got to make cards.

One thing she did that was really cool was that she made several templates. She cut all the paper in advance (due to time constraints) and bagged it up into mini kits. Each person was able to choose a kit and then she went through the creative process. It was pretty awesome! Though the kids didn't have a chance to actually use the Cricut she brought, she did a small demonstration with it. (And we have an arts & crafts & hobby room here on campus and if the kids have good behavior, they're allowed to go there after school and weekends. There's a Cricut in that space so the kids got see what it could do during the program AND will have access to one, too!)

It was a fun experience. While I will never become a 'card maker' (that's Daddy-O's specialty) it was fun to do. I can see why it's awesomely fun to do as a group, too. I will occasionally make a card or two, in the future, I'm sure.

Here are some samples of the work the kids made:

We even made our own envelops!

This 'Aloha' one is the card I made!

Maggie

Sometimes it's not all about the benjamins

Though I could use a job with more money and some benefits I have to say that I work in a place where my school administrators (and some other folks) are not stingy with praise.

Yesterday I hosted a little Mardi Gras party at school; to make it educational I gave a Christian perspective of Mardi Gras (since we're a faith based facility) and fed the kids King Cake. My administrators came in to hear the program and both sent me a nice email thanking me for all my work and exclaiming on what a great job I did.

I attended a School Board Meeting last night to show my support to my administration for a very ugly school politics situation and this morning I had an email thanking me for my support.

I heard from them about liking my newsletter I made for the library.

They aren't the type to "over kill" with praise but they recognize when someone goes out of the way to do something extra and I do appreciate that so much. The last two places I worked did not have administrators who did this. The last school the administrators barely could remember my name let alone recognize anything "extra" I did.

This is a lovely change of pace.

Some of my colleagues are also nice like this. I get notes or emails or just verbal praise or thanks from secretaries or fellow teachers. It's nice to know they realize I'm trying to do SOMETHING good for the students. Even though I make $8 an hour and am considered part time.

And while singing praise on people, I have to say the students in my school completely rocked yesterday. I gave the presentation and the kids sat quietly and were attentive (or faked it really well.). None of them were out of line about Mardi Gras/ beads/ boobs/ booze; they were very school appropriate with their questions and comments. They said "thank you" for the donuts and the programs. They were enthusiastic and engaged. They cleaned up their own messes and pushed in chairs before they left the library. They complimented me on all the decorations. I'm just saying that while my school population are considered "criminals" they were dang nice criminals yesterday. I had contact with the entire student body yesterday and it was an excellent positive experience. I was very impressed with our students.

Sometimes the "atta boys" are just the perk-me-up and reminder that I need to keep doing what I do, whether they come from the students or adults!

Maggie

March in my library

I wrote my first library newsletter and I'm going to pass one out to each kid tomorrow. It's full of cool things I have planned for the month of March. I want the library to be a center of 'artistic learning' and not just all about books. I want my students to WANT to come to the library.

This month I've hidden paper shamrocks in books and if students find one, they can check it out, read it, take a Reading Counts test and if they pass it, then they get a full sized candy bar. I'm holding this contest until St. Paddy's Day.

Next week I'm hosting a fat Tuesday party. I got a local bakery to give me some donuts and I'm going to serve them all call 'em King Cakes. I've created a 4 minute Power Point presentation about Mardi Gras and how it's related to Christianity. I also have decorations and door prizes.

Every Friday we have a drawing. Kids who get awarded a good behavior award come in the library and their name goes in a drawing so they can win prizes. The "drawing container" is in pretty bad shape. I'm sponsoring a decoration contest. Students can submit a design and the winner will bring the design to life, and get a lunch out!

The last thing I have planned for March is an Art & Lecture activity. I'm having a guest speaker come in, show some greeting cards she's mad, talk about it and then the invitees get to make a card or two. this is happening on the Ides of March.

I was going to have a St. Patrick's Party but the only way I could think of tying it to the library was through Irish poetry. Usually written by drunks. So I thought I would pass on that!

I'm so excited about it all!

My only stupid moment was as the copier spit out copy #116 of my March newsletter and I thought I should've celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday. On March 2. Ooops!

Maggie

Car and library updates; plus a day off that wasn't

Well the car started! Finally!

ITSam and a guy from work went out and put in some sort of new filter and sprayed some stuff on some part (obviously I didn't listen when I was told all the details.) It still didn't start. Sam consulted with 3 mechanics and all three said the same thing: bad gas caused water or ice in my fuel line. All said the same solution: put a bottle of HEET in the gas tank.

So XRay Girl and I (ITSam would've done with but I already had girl time with her planned) go to Big R and buy HEET, which was on sale for 99 cents a bottle- thank you Curly for spotting that bargain- then we headed out to the car. At 9pm. In the parking lot in the middle of the country. While it was snowing. I poured the stuff in and the car started up like it had never stopped running. Now how weird was that??????

Thank god for small favors! It started again in the morning and after school and is fine. Today is pay day so all the mechanics concurred again that I get fuel (somewhere else with a better reputation) and fill it up and add another can of HEET! Also, thank god for Sam. I swear- a car problem that I didn't have to handle or manage. I'd marry him for the sole reason of NEVER having to deal with a car problem again!

As for my student in the library... today is her last day with me. After many meetings with the powers that be, we decided it's really more of a hindrance than a help. She'll be doing something else- I've no idea what. So rather than coming to work with me for 3 periods a day, she'll just be there for 1. One is good. One is do-able, manageable. One I can live with one easily. And the work study supervisor told me if all else fails, let her read magazine and newspapers and books if I have nothing else for her to do. (She likes magazines!)

Lastly, yesterday at school the power went off during lunch. After all the right people made all the right phone calls, we were told that the power would be off for 3-4 hours. So our residential staff canceled school and sent all the kids to their campus housing. As a staff we had to wait for the actual school system to cancel us before we could go home. As our principal is on the phone being told we can go home, the power came ON. We all went back to our classrooms (library) and the kids were called back. All we really missed was about 35 minutes of school. So close, yet so far!

TGIF!
Maggie