The NEW Pride Plaza!

 One of the things that I love about being a media specialist is that my reach can be felt throughout the entire school and not just in one classroom. I can team up with different groups of teachers and staff to create and execute projects, and I try to take advantage of that as much as possible. 

A few months ago, we created the Garden of Readin', a beautification project just outside the media center. That went over really well! This Thanksgiving break, we took on another area of the school that needed some renovation, the outdoor courtyard just outside the cafeteria. Over the years, the mural had faded, the tables were neglected, and it became a home for trash cans and other assorted paraphernalia. It was an unattractive mess. This area became our new project. 

Pride Plaza BEFORE the renovation

Over the course of the first weekend of Thanksgiving break, a team of teachers painted, planted, and cleaned up the area to make it an inviting area for kids, staff, and parents. The idea was that parents could come in and have lunch with their kids in the plaza or we could hold some outdoor events in this area. It was an area of school that needed to be refurbished.

Things went well over the course of those two days. We painted, planted, hung canvas shade sails, and cleaned up the area. The area now looks crisp, clean, colorful, and inviting. We could not be happier with the results. Upon returning to school, the kids seemed to love the new plaza. They remarked about how cool it looked and immediately wanted to eat lunch on the plaza. 

This is another example of what we can do as a staff and student body when we take ownership of our surroundings and work to improve them. Now, we are looking at other areas of the campus that might need a little work. Here are some pics of the finished Pride Plaza. 

 

How I Got Student Loan Forgiveness!

Ever since I posted on social media last week that I got student loan forgiveness, I have been inundated by people asking exactly how that happened. I thought it would be best to go through the process here instead of giving piecemeal information to each person who asked. For the record, my loans were forgiven under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. That program states that if you work in a public service job (teachers, librarian, police, firefighter, charitable organization, etc.), then your loan will be forgiven after 120 on-time payments (ten years). It sounds easy but before the new rule change, only a few dozen out of thousands had actually gotten forgiveness through this program. For more details about the new rules, click the link here.

I had been paying student loans off and on since 1993. The balance never went down and when I went back to school, I put those loans into forbearance. All of my loans were different. It was difficult to keep track of. In 2007, legislation passed for the PSLF program and public servants who accumulated ten years of on-time payments while working full-time for a qualifying employer, could start having their loans dismissed beginning in 2017. It seemed like a good deal. Take a lower paying job and get this benefit down the road. Many tried to take advantage but were met with frustration at how the program was actually administered. 

Upon moving to Florida in 2016, I consolidated all of my outstanding student loans into a qualifying PSLF loan and enrolled in an income-driven program so that no more than 10% of my disposable income would go toward payment of my student loan. Now that I was in the right program, all I had to do was make on-time payments until 2027 and my loans would be forgiven. The payments that I made before 2016 did not qualify because I did not have the right type of loans or was not in the right repayment program. So from 1993-2016, those payments did not get me any closer to student loan forgiveness. Bummer.

Last month, when changes to this plan went into effect, suddenly the payments that I made from 2007, when the program started, until 2016, when I consolidated into the correct loan payment program, were eligible. FedLoan Servicing, my student loan servicer, sent me an email saying that under the new rules, 82 previously non-qualifying payments (7 years' worth of payments) would now qualify if I could certify employment for those months. Needless to say, I downloaded the form, filled out my portion, and sent it off to the Human Resources Department of my previous school district. When it came back, I uploaded it and waited. Those 82 months, along with the 60 months that I had paid while in the correct repayment program, were many more than the 120 I needed for forgiveness. And so, I waited. Saturday morning, while having coffee on the patio, I opened the email from FedLoan Servicing telling me that my student loans had been forgiven. Wow! I was shocked! I quickly printed out the forms before they could change their minds! 

I know that many believe that you can get your loans forgiven just because you're a teacher or work in public service, but it's not that easy. There are two things you MUST do. First, you must make 120 on-time payments. Second, you must consolidate your loans into a PSLF-eligible loan in order to take advantage of forgiveness. Often those eligible loans come with income-driven parameters to keep the payments manageable while making payments. Once you meet those criteria, your loans will be forgiven.

The new Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness allows for previous payments that had not been counted under the old rules to count toward forgiveness. That is the big difference and it really is big. For me, it was 82 payments, or about $40,000 in payments that had not previously counted but did now. 

I hope that everyone who works in a public service field and has student loans will take the time to learn about the new rules. These new rules are only good for one calendar year as a way to grant forgiveness to those who should have had it by now but didn't because of the confusion and mismanagement of the program. The rule change has made a huge difference in so many public servants' lives, including my own.  

Podcast - Learning at Lely - School Culture

The latest episode of our podcast, Learning at Lely, is up! Tune in for a great conversation about School Culture. You can also subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and other major podcast hosting services. Learning at Lely - School Culture

 

Our New Book Vending Machine: How Did That Happen?

I first saw the idea of a book vending machine a few years ago. I thought it was an amazing way to get kids fired up about reading but the possibilities of getting one were daunting. Those things are expensive. Worth it, but expensive. I put the thought out of my mind for a time, until Paul Holimon, a colleague from my middle school days, sent me an article about a school in Oklahoma that was able to get a book vending machine. Sooooo, I started thinking that maybe this was possible after all.

 I took the article and some preliminary research about specs and pricing to the principal (at the time, Tammy Brown). She loved the idea but, like me, didn't know how we could pulls off something like this. After all, it is a huge deal. We stewed on the idea throughout our virtual year. I mentioned it to every staff person I saw, hoping to brainstorm some ideas about how to pay for something like this. We had tentative approval to get a book vending machine...if we could pay for it. I thought of a Donors Choose grant but that is one heck of a steep grant that would probably not get funded. There really was no money to do this.

Then one day, I was talking to two of our superstar teachers, Jamie Sebold and Megan Noe, who floated the idea of using walk-a-thon money to pay for it. Over the past two years, we raised a lot of money through our walk-a-thons and we had never decided where we wanted to use that money. They suggested to Tammy Brown that we should use some of it to buy a book vending machine. Suddenly, we had secured funding!

After contacting Global Vending Group, I picked our model and we paid a bit extra for a custom wrap that would make our Lely machine stand out. After some snags arranging payment for this (there is a lot of red tape and processes to pay for something like this), we were ready to formally place our order. Global Vending Group had our order. Now, it was time to wait. And wait we did.

In the brochure, they say the wait is between three and four months. It was a bit longer for us because of supply chain and labor issues at the company. However, last Monday, we got the email that our machine had shipped! It would be in Naples in three days' time. Now, our only worry was if it would fit through our media center  door. On the literature from the company, it said that the shortest side was 35" and our door was 34.5". I had emailed with the company this past summer to make sure it would fit and was assured that indeed it was only 32-34" on its shortest side. We held our breath, hoping that that information was accurate. 

The truck pulled into the parking lot and it was time to jump into action. The driver would deliver to the curb and we had to take it from there. Yanka Ruiz, our amazing facilities director, was ready. She had our pallet lift and moved that machine to the media center door. But, it would not fit through the door opening on the pallet. We had to take it off the pallet. After getting a few staff members involved to help, we lowered the machine on its side and tried to get it through the door. No luck. The door push bar was in the way. Yanka had a solution. She took the door off the hinges and we set it aside. The machine coasted through the opening smooth as butter. At that moment, we all let out a collective sigh of relief. Our machine fit through the door to the media center. We were home free.

We got the machine upright and unwrapped all of the plastic and cardboard to reveal a beautiful, fun, kid-friendly book vending machine. It is striking! After we got it into place, we were finished for the day. Kids came by to see what all of the hubbub was about. After all, we had blocked the hallway while getting the machine through the door and they had to take a detour, so they knew something big was happening. As kids walked by, we heard lots of gasps and comments about how cool the machine was. It was having the desired effect. 

Now, we have the machine turned on and everything tested out perfectly. We still have to load books into the machine to get it ready for our new reading incentive program. More on that later. We have a special day of events planned for October 20 to celebrate our new book vending machine. We think this will inspire many kids to read, find "their books", and have a fun and festive environment around the idea of reading. Needless to say, we are so stoked to have this book vending machine in our school and plan to use it to increase the reading among our kids. Stay tuned for updates! 

I Recommend...

We talk all of the time about student voice and choice. We aim to hand over the decision-making responsibility to our students as they go through our school system. We coach them in what makes a good decision, ramifications of those decisions, and then we let them begin making more and more decisions. One of the things I love to see is when kids start making decisions about their learning. There are so many ways we can incorporate student decision-making into the everyday lives of kids at school. I see teachers everyday giving kids opportunities to choose learning experiences, collaborative teams, and ways to meet their curricular standards. 

In the media center, we also want to give kids a voice in their learning. One of the ways we have decided to give students voice is to have our kiddos make book recommendations. As adults, we make book recommendations to kids all of the time. However, a lot of times the books we recommend do not resonate with our kids because we read them from our perspective as adults, not as kids would read them. We mean well, but we often miss the mark. There are also times that kids will reject recommendations from adults because they consider them "teacher books" and not books that they would want to read.

We started incorporating student recommendations this year by creating a gallery in the media center windows. When students pass by, they see pictures of our kids with a book that they recommend in their hands. Kids can identify their schoolmates and see what books they love. They may be more inclined to pick up those books if they know that their friends have read them. One of the most powerful ways to get kids reading is to have peers recommend books. It helps build a culture of reading when we all talk about our reading, and over time, kids learn to be proud of all of the books they have read and their future reading goals. Our student book recommendations are a hit. We knew they would be. Our kids are using their voices to celebrate their reading. We could not be happier about it.

Podcast: Learning at Lely - Leader in Me Update

Our latest podcast is up! You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcasting service. Click the link below to listen.

Learning at Lely - Leader in Me Update

The Garden of Readin'

Lely Elementary School is a special place brimming with rock star teachers and talented students. Everyday, we see the kiddos at Lely do the right things: help other students, show kindness, display grace under pressure, and work hard toward their goals. Our amazing teachers plan some of the coolest learning activities for them that I have ever seen. There is always something awe-inspiring going on. 

One of my goals is to make the media center a hub of the school and nurture kids' love of reading. I want them to spend time there reading, looking for books, making, collaborating, listening, and learning. I know that an increase in student traffic is a good measure of how they perceive the media center. Do they like it? Do they want to spend time there? Do they come back? Do they avoid the place? I'm trying to remake the media center into one of the most kid-friendly elementary school libraries in the state of Florida. 

One of the things that we have been working on is transforming the space into a vibrant, colorful, interactive media center where kids always find something new. To that end, last weekend, we installed the Garden of Readin' right outside of our media center. This was an idea a few months in the making. We took an area outside that is adjacent to the media center and remade it into a colorful, interactive, peaceful place for kids to read, chill, learn, imagine, and wonder. This is the Garden of Readin' (scroll down for many more pics). 

In early August, I wrote two garden-themed grants on Donors Choose, one for the basic gardening items and the second for the decor items that would make this area magical. I enlisted the help of local artist Matt Park, who has been a great friend of Lely Elementary, to help make this vision a reality. He had many ideas that I had not even considered and that synergy was essential to this project. With all of the materials delivered, we took a couple of days over the long weekend and got to work. 

We cleared out the old plants that had been there for a long time, tilled the soil, added bags of topsoil and Black Kow, and got the area ready for planting. Having planned this garden out on paper, we then planted according to the drawings. After a few hours, we saw that this space was becoming what we had imagined.

A few hours into the second day of work, it was time to wrap things up. We placed the painted stones, attached Matt's signs, hung the wind chimes and spinners, and gave it one final look. Our garden idea had come to life. It was colorful, interactive, fun, and magical. We were incredibly pleased with how things turned out. We thought that the kids (and adults) were going to love it. No one really knew that we were going to do this project over the weekend. It was intended as a surprise. Was it ever!

One of the things that we planned for the garden was for each student at the school to choose their favorite color stone and use some paint markers to personalize the stone and place it back in the garden. We want all of our kids to be represented in our garden as they are in our school community. When classes came down for their read-alouds, they also painted stones. It was such a fun time and the kids seemed really excited. 

The kiddos had a blast making the stones their own. We have many more classes that still have to come down to make their stones, but we got about six classes finished in the last couple of days. Now when kids walk by the garden, they can point to their stone and know that they are an integral part of our garden, and our school. Since Lely Elementary is a Leader in Me School, the class adjacent to the garden has agreed to maintain and take care of the garden. That will probably happen one afternoon a week where the kiddos sweep, replace any stones that get moved, check for weather damage, and re-mulch when necessary. 

I have already heard about kiddos trying to match the fictional (or real) places on the sign with the books that go with them. Some are now trying to read them all. It is really fun to see how the kids interact with the garden and I'm looking forward to hearing more over the next few weeks. 

Now, it's time to find another area of campus that needs some sprucing up and get to work there. I have a couple in mind already so keep an eye on this space to see what happens on campus in the next few months. For now, enjoy the pictures as you scroll down.

The Only Constant is Change

Anyone who works in a school knows that every day will be a new and different day. We hear our friends in other professions talking about the hum-drum, boring work tasks they perform everyday. Not so in education. Our days start off with a solid plan but with the ebbs and flows of each school day, we adjust and tweak our plans to make sure the kids get what they need while juggling several unexpected occurrences. Truly, teachers and staff at your local public school are intellectually agile people who can troubleshoot in seconds and make even the most challenging situations into learning experiences that look like they were planned out for weeks. 

One reason that teachers are so nimble is that we live with the constant of change. In education, nothing stays the same. We receive new students to the school every day, we navigate changing classes, student absences, schedule changes, fire drills, code red drills, and a host of other changes in the normal schedule. Through all of this change, teachers excel. They take it all in stride and wind up turning even the most difficult situations into learning opportunities for students. I've seen countless occurrences of "teachable moments" when a teacher turns a potential problem into a seamless learning experience. 

At Lely Elementary, we have experienced a lot of change as of late. At the end of last year, our principal made some changes to the teaching staff that included moving teachers to different grade levels and giving many teachers some new responsibilities. As anyone knows, when you move people into other jobs that they may not be comfortable with, they may not like it. However, our teachers accepted the challenge of their new roles. We are four weeks into the school year, and our teachers are performing beautifully. 

Some of the benefits of teachers moving grade levels is that they are intimately aware of the expectations and curricula of the grades they came from and can look at issues with a different perspective. They can even help align curricula and activities based on what they did at their old grade level. 

Another benefit of moving teachers is that a different kind of synergy emerges. Teachers who may not have worked together before can now bounce ideas off of each other, draw on past experiences and successes, troubleshoot problems, and dream a little. I know that I am at my most creative when I can talk to another teacher. We bounce ideas off of each other and within ten minutes, we have a viable plan to solve a problem or start a program. When we put teachers in the same room, that kind of energy multiplies. I have often said that giving teachers time together with no agenda is the best way to get some new and bold ideas. 

We have also had a leadership change at Lely Elementary. Our new principal comes to us excited to make a difference in the lives of the teachers and students. We know we are at the beginning of a renaissance at Lely Elementary and the previous principal put us on solid footing to make great gains. Our new principal will have the opportunity to guide our school to new heights. We are on board and we are eager to continue our journey together, helping our kids develop their fullest potential. 

Look out Collier County! Lely Elementary is ready to make some big strides!

The Positive is Palpable

There is always so much promise at the beginning of a new school year. Everyone is fresh and rested when they show up for the first day and really happy to begin a new school year. While this was a very short summer break, teachers and students still returned to school with positive attitudes about the year ahead. This year, there are a lot of things to be happy about at Lely Elementary School. It's going to be a good year.

One of the new things that we'll be doing this year is using a new literacy program. All instructional staff had a two-day training to get up to speed on the program's emphasis and resources. Based on what I saw during those two days, I think this program is going to lead to a huge improvement in student learning. For one thing, phonics takes a front seat in literacy learning. I'm not sure what has happened to phonics over the years. It seems that when I started (in the late 1980's), phonics was in vogue, and over the course of my 30+ years in education, it has gone in and out of fashion in schools. I never understood why. Phonics is a great way for many kids to learn to read and it should have been in our toolbox all along. Now, it is back and I think we are the better for it. Kids in all elementary grades, K-5, will have phonics incorporated into the literacy lessons. Yes, even fifth graders need phonics. Well, many adults do too :) 

Our amazing fifth grade news crew was ready to do the 

news live on the very first day of school!

Another improvement is the district emphasis on reading in class. It is long overdue. I remember a few years ago when I was observed by a principal and my kiddos were reading. We read every day for thirty minutes of our ninety minute block. It took a while to get the kids to buy in but after a while, we created a cool reading community where kids would find "their" books, read them, and share them with others. I made book recommendations, of course, but the kids did most of the recommending. It was a beautiful thing to see. However, my principal at the time was not a fan. The message to me was that I was wasting our time by having kids read in class. That was an activity that was not on his principal checklist. There was no box to check for what I was doing in class and therefore it was not a valid activity. Of course, I explained the research behind having kids read in class and the great learning strides that kids made, but my advocacy fell on deaf ears. There was no box for it on the checklist. Now, reading in class is a point of emphasis and the kids will all be better for it!

Another thing that will make a huge difference in our school year is our Leader in Me program at Lely. This will be our first real, uninterrupted year of implementing this program. We are all familiar enough with the program now that we can administer the program and grow it over the course of the year. Teachers' mindsets have evolved to include the kids in planning activities even more than we did before. While in the past couple of years, we have been able to get one or two things off the ground, this year, I expect we will get dozens of new aspects of this program integrated into our school year. Nearly all of the teachers are on board and we have excellent leadership, so the pieces are in place for a great school.

We also have some "Wow" factor things planned. Kids and adults like to come into the building and see something new, something awe-inspiring, and they are going to have those experiences several times this year. We have many things in the works that, over the course of the school year, will provide that jolt of excitement for students and teachers when they walk through the doors of Lely Elementary. Now, I won't spill the beans here, but if you subscribe to our Facebook page (facebook.com/lelymediacenter) or follow us on Instagram (@doneckert_libraryguy) or Twitter (@dayankee). you will see all of the amazing things we are bringing to the school this year. And watch this space too. I'll be updating all of the cool and wonderful things that are happening at school all year long. 

While the first week of school is over, the positive vibes of administrators, teachers, and students is palpable, and it's just the beginning. This is going to be a great year at Lely, and we can't wait for these kids to experience their best school year ever!

The Reading Championship!

We all know that reading is THE most essential skill for students to master and at Lely Elementary, we focus like a laser on reading. Over the course of the year, we have developed an extensive reading incentive program to hook kids into reading. I've never been one to champion incentives for reading because I think once kids find "their books" they will read ravenously for the rest of their lives. It's all about the search for the books that match the student. Part of the art of teaching is making that match between students and books. 

When kids do not even attempt to read books, an incentive program is appropriate. After all, we are trying to hook them on reading and if an incentive furthers that cause, I'm all for it. Once they find the books they love, they will be off and reading on their own without any need for incentives. 

Our program has evolved over the course of the year into what it is today, and it may still grow. We set aside one day per quarter to celebrate the kids' accomplishments in reading. On that special day, all kids who reach their reading goals get a certificate and a Lely Elementary Reading Goals Brag Tag. They also get a cookie-decorating kit from the cafeteria. We mail a post card home so parents can see that their kiddo has been recognized for their reading; a parent connection is important. Kids who attain 100+ Reading Counts Points (Reading Counts is our reading program at Lely Elementary) are recognized as Century Club Members and get special perks (additional certificate, pizza, etc). To top it all off, we crown a Reading Champion Class each quarter. The class that has the greatest percentage of kids reaching their reading goals is crowned the Reading Champion for the quarter.

The reading championship is hotly contested and the kids really get into it. Often we will see kids encouraging each other to check out another book or read over the weekend so that they can more easily reach their reading goal. They are generating a positive peer pressure that recognizes the class as a community of readers. Kids recommend books to each other, talk about books, and come to the library multiple times per week. We, as the media team, keep tabs on their reading as well. The amount of traffic in the library has increased exponentially over the past year and we love the busy hive of learning that we are creating. 

On our reading celebration day, our principal, reading specialist, and media specialist walk around to all of the classrooms to deliver the good news to the kids and teachers. We pass out the certificates, recognize the Century Club winners, and celebrate all of their accomplishments. Most of the time, the kids are waiting to see if they will be crowned Reading Champions. We make sure to take the trophy with us to all of the classrooms. When the kids see that trophy come through their door, there is an audible gasp from the kids. It is awesome!

Mrs. Palmer's Q4 Reading Champions

This quarter, for the first time, we had a tie for the Lely Elementary Reading Championship. Mrs. Palmer's third grade class was one of the winners. This is a class that had a few kids reach their reading goals during the first quarter of the year. As the year went on, Mrs. Palmer coached and cheered on these kids so that more reached their goals during second and third quarter. During fourth quarter, this group was determined! They worked so hard and pushed each other to win the Lely Elementary Reading Championship. Neighboring classes knew something was going on in this room when they were presented with the trophy. Things got loud!

Mrs. Carbonell's Q4 Reading Champions

Mrs. Carbonell's class was the defending champion! In fact, this class was the Q2 AND Q3 champion. Only once before had we had a back-to-back winner. Mrs. Carbonell's class is now the only three-time champion in Lely Elementary history. To win three times is an awesome achievement but to win for three consecutive quarters is simply amazing! These kids were excited readers all year long and were frequent visitors to our media center.

The reading celebration day each quarter is always such a fun day. It is a day that kids really look forward to and the excitement is apparent on their faces as we walk the campus with certificates and trophy in hand. We are doing everything that we can to hook our kids on reading and this incentive plan has proven to be a hit!

We are working on some big surprises in the media center for next year. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks. We're incredibly excited!

Making the News

We all know that kids can do amazing things when given the opportunity. Often, kids crave more responsibility and part of learning in schools is giving kids more responsibility. We want kids to become more independent and grow into curious, self-reliant learners. There are many roles in a school that kids can do instead of adults. Our Leader in Me program helps us identify various roles that kids can take on and many tasks that kids can do instead of adults. After all, we are a community of learners and we all teach each other and learn from each other.

One of the areas in which students have excelled at is the morning news program. Under the direction of the school media specialist, kids present the morning news program to the rest of the school on the closed circuit television station. There is a combination of factors that make a news program good, or bad. 

Our fifth graders this year made our news program excellent. They were professional in their jobs, they were lively on-air, and they were fun and engaging. The rest of the school got to see these kids' personalities while they delivered the news. Students and teachers consistently reported that the news was engaging and they got to know the anchors a bit over time.

Connor - Anchor, Sound Master, Slides, Script

Jayla - Team Leader, Anchor, Slides, Script

Josh - Anchor, Sound Master, Slides, Script

Kevin - Anchor, Slides, Script

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Lauren - Anchor, Slides, Script

Rodney - Team Captain, Anchor, Sound Master, Script, Slides

In the newsroom, there are four "jobs" that kids can do. We train each kiddo on every job. This cross-training comes in handy when someone is absent or is not able to do the news one day. It is easy to switch around personnel to make sure that the news goes off without a hitch. 

We have our "Slider" - the person who controls the PowerPoint slides to correspond with the script that the anchor is reading. 

We have our "Scripter" - the person who controls the script, keeping it just ahead of the anchor so that there is never a long pause while delivering the news. 

We have the "Sound Master" - the person who controls which video feeds are seen on television and controls the microphones and other sounds. Everything revolves around the Sound Master.

And we have the Anchor - the star of the show. It is imperative that the anchor delivers the news smoothly and with feeling, inflection, and life.

I cannot convey how proud I am of this year's fifth grade news crew. Last week was their last week on the news crew so that we can move fourth graders into those positions for the last two weeks of school. We do so in order for these fourth graders to be ready on Day 1 of next year when the news begins. Our fifth grade team was professional, crazy, fun, and excellent at their jobs. They have set the bar extremely high and the fourth grade team knows it. I have no doubt that next year's news crew will perform as well as this year's team. After all, they had some amazing role models.