Pardon Our Dust

In our media center, we have championed change. We want to evolve to make this a great, interesting, wonderous learning space and the hub of our school building. We have been taking baby steps for the past year but all of these baby steps add up. We have been able to add color, texture, MakerSpace items, lights, tents, teepees, and a host of other kid-friendly entities to our space. One things that had not changed was our old, dilapidated circulation desk. It was an eyesore even after dressing it up as best we could. With permission from our principal, Tammy Brown, our Facilities Manager Yanka Ruiz was able to schedule the construction of a new circulation desk. When we heard the news, we were ecstatic! This was the one thing that we could not do ourselves and we had no idea how long the wait would be in order to make this change. Would it be months? Years? Well, it came sooner than we thought.

We got a visit from the district construction team and they outlined for us what the process would be. We told them that we would make any changes necessary to give them the space to work. We chose our color palette and the design of the desk, and we waited a few days. Word came that the process would start so we moved to a couple of temporary tables for a couple of weeks. In that time, we saw the demolition of the old desk and construction of our beautiful new desk. We stayed open during this time, providing all of the services that we normally would, with as little impact to the kids and the learning as possible. This time period was not as difficult as we feared it would be.

As you can see, this was a big undertaking. The construction team was remarkable. They were considerate of our needs and tried to work around us. We also tried to work around them and since we all had the same goal in mind, things went seamlessly. As you can also see from the pics, the old counter was very high. While sitting behind the desk, we could not see many of our younger students. This desk was not conducive to an elementary school library. 

After a week or so, things really started coming together. We could see the footprint of the new circulation desk. It was much roomier than the previous incarnation. It was built with a busy media center in mind. There would be lots of closed cabinet space, a low counter for the younger kids, and lots of outlets for electricity and Internet connections. This would be a modern circulation desk. As more of the construction happened, we got more and more excited. 

After the construction team was finished, we unveiled our beautiful new circulation counter. Our color scheme matched our media center perfectly and it looked beautiful. The "ooooohs" and "ahhhhhs" from both students and teachers were audible as they entered the library. After we moved back over from our temporary space, we immediately noticed how much better this counter was. We could see the kids! We could store things and close the cabinets! We could have two functioning computers to serve the kids and adults better! 

This change was not a small change like the ones that came before. This change was ginormous! This change sets the tone for more changes to come but nothing we will do in the future will have as great of an effect as the new circulation desk. We are grateful to the district for completing this project during the school year and we are grateful for our team at Lely, from our principal to our facilities manager, who made this change possible. We are now ready for the next fifteen years of service to the kids and staff at Lely Elementary School.