Tamara Ballard

FRIT 7734
Dr. Jones

Middle School Library Media Specialist Interview #3

Q1. Name of media specialist being interviewed.

A) ​Raquel Hewitt

Q2. Name of School where the media specialist is employed.

A) ​Lancaster Middle School

Q3. How long have you been a media specialist?

A) ​This is my 15th year as a school librarian.

Q4. How long were you a classroom teacher before becoming a media specialist?

A) ​I was a classroom teacher for 4 years.

Q5. How have your past job experiences prepared you, directly or indirectly, for this position?

A) ​My parents said I would be a librarian. I kept encyclopedias in my room, and my sisters
would have to check them out. I would check to see if they wrote in them. I worked at a prison
before I started teaching and to see the order of things.

Q6. Why did you choose to pursue a degree to become a school library media specialist?

A) ​I became a librarian on a fluke. TWU (Texas Woman’s University) had a grant and they
were only taking 15 students, but they had thousands of applicants. My school librarian
encouraged me to apply. I was getting my masters in Reading, but I was just beginning and
some of those classes could transfer over. The number of applicants kept going up because it was
free. They called after 2 interviews and they said I was in. I was not expecting it, this was not
my career path.

Q7. What educational preparation have you had for being a school librarian? What was your
experience with that? What didn’t you learn in school that you wish you had?

A)​ Working at the prison prepared me to be a school librarian because it taught me that I would
need a behavior management plan for students in the library. I was also an instructional coach,
and I remember that I wanted to make things that I taught purposeful for others to use. That has
been ingrained in me.

Q8. What experience have you had with cooperative program planning? with cooperative
teaching?

A)​ I try to be as involved with them as I can. I plan with them at least once or twice every six
weeks. I give them resources that they can use. The resources are currently digital so they can
share with their distant learners.

Q9. How would you go about developing a strong team approach with other teachers? How
would you get reluctant teachers to utilize the library?

A) ​Before I approach the teachers, I would look at the TEKS standards to be familiar with the
grade level. Then I would share resources with the teacher and mention the standards to get
their attention. The reluctant teachers would be interested in the conversation when you know a
little about the standards they are currently teaching.

Q10. How do you see the role of the library in the overall reading program of the school?

A)​ I think it revolves around our staff. The older teachers or more seasoned teachers see the
value in reading tangible books. The new teachers or inexperienced teachers would just go with
the curriculum. The new curriculum does not have that many books for daily reading. I have to
kind of make them see the value of it. Now that we are starting the district Benchmark this week,
the teachers who have had their students reading online, reading from their class library will
notice those students' grades will be higher than those that have not been reading, don’t have
access to read, or not pushed to read. It will be like a show and prove.

Q11. How would you go about: (a) promoting appreciation and interest in the use of resource
center materials? (b) promoting storytelling, story reading, book talks, and other resource
center programs?

A)​ I have students that are reading on a 3rd or 4th grade reading level. I share my school
library Bitmoji page on the school website and through my Google Classroom.

Q12. What is your experience in leading professional development? Especially in leading

technology-related professional development?

A) ​I host a professional development for a cluster once every six weeks. We go over text shared
items, any new items that technology has rolled out, troubleshooting with the Promethean
Boards. I would find an app and share to be shown on the Promethean Board. I would do all of
these things school wide. Whatever I find, then we can roll it out for everyone to use.

Q13. How do you ensure your own continued professional growth? In what areas do you feel
you would like to develop your professional skills and knowledge further?

A)​ I am going to be honest with you Ms. Ballard, I don’t think I’m a very good librarian. I know
I’m an excellent resource because I have to help everyone at the school, but there are things I
could do better. I just don’t have the time or the space to do it. I know I could do better in my
collection development, but because we don’t have enough funding to buy a collection of things.
We are not able to do that, so we would have to chop it up, because we are a smaller district. I
got to work on my collection development. I think I need to work on being more organized,
because if someone else came after me then they would not understand what I was doing.

Q14. Describe how you will create an inclusive space where diversity and equity are valued by
all learners in the school community.

A)​ I try to have the media center be a space for everybody. I have a lunchtime group that likes to
create and have debates. They are the socially awkward kids, athletes, and kids that you
wouldn’t think would talk with each other outside of the library. Some of the students struggle in
class. They may need more SEL (Social Emotional Learning), and more hands on. They know
they are free to come into the media center and talk about whatever they want to talk about. We
pick topics and we talk such as go on CNN or what happened at school. At the same time, they
are creating things like for the past couple of years we have been making blankets and quilts for
the senior citizens at a nursing home in Lancaster. At the same time, we are helping the
community, we are helping each other.

Q15. How do you ensure that you have appropriate resources for all learners in your school?
How do you include reading and instructional materials in both print and digital formats that
represent multiple perspectives and varying points of view?

A) ​I pull my TEKS what needs to be covered. I have life skills and an autism unit that have very
low performing students. When I got to the middle school, there were a few easy readers. I had
to purchase more to cover that population because the number of students grew. I had to order
accordingly based on the population. As I stated before, students go to my school library Bitmoji
and click on the digital book to read. I encourage teachers to tell their students that are home to
read online books.