MIDDLE SCHOOL MANIA

I did my first day of practicum outside of my school today.  I spent the day at Coastal Middle School.  It was like going back home.  Coastal was one of my sites when I worked for the district's Instructional Technology Department.  I spent countless hours working in and around this media center for close to five years, but all of this time was under a different media staff.  The new staff, like the former, is awesome.  In fact, the Media Specialist was nominated as teacher of the year for her school.  That is pretty cool!  Most of the time this honor goes to a classroom teacher, but Mrs. Kemp deserves it.  She has turned the media center from a place to check out books to a place where students want to hang out.  She started a new project this year where students can come in before the homeroom bell rings.  There were fifty or so students in the MC the day of my practicum.  It was neat to walk into a room that is normally full of patrons paying ID fines to find the room alive with activity.  She said that she has gotten some push back from some staff members about her morning group.  She told them that she would prefer to have the students in the MC  rather than wondering the halls.  Great idea!  The kids must like it as well, because they were in the MC with no air conditioner.  It was a bit hot.  In an effort to cool the room down they sent out an email for fans in the media center.  They were flooded with people walking in a cheering for the media center.  Gotta love middle school humor.  After the fist bell rung, the fine folks from Scholastic dropped off her book fair materials.  I jumped right in and helped her set up.  After all, I just had my book fair the month before.  We did a variety of technology trouble shooting after lunch while talking about her budget.  She gets her budget allotment each year like I do, but she is also supplemented by book fines and IDs.  She told me that a parent complained about her son having to pay for temporary IDs.  Mrs. Kemp let her know that the IDs are mandated by the district and that she has to pay for them.  I believe her exact words were, "We are self-sustaining".  Overall I had a great visit.  Mrs. Kemp helped me to see several things that I could do in my Media Center.