Interview Two, Gina Scott

"Collaborate: Work effectively with others to broaden perspectives and work toward common goals."(AASL, 2018, p.83)

I interviewed Gina Scott, the librarian at Laing Middle School in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Before becoming a librarian, Ms. Scott was a Social Studies teacher, and she prides herself on the ways she implements the COLLABORATE AASL Shared Foundation in her building.

Ms. Scott reaches out to all ELA teachers in her building and schedules them into the library each week or every other week. She does not wait for new teachers to approach her or to pick a time, in her experience, those teachers begin the year overwhelmed and if she waited for them to make time for the library, they might not come in. This is a strategy which might work in my building, where teachers are stressed to the point of skipping emails, and often do not take advantage of library offerings - perhaps scheduling their classes into the library on a regular basis would increase traffic. Ms. Scott says that although there are some weeks when certain classes do not make it into the library, the times that classes do come in provide not only time to connect with students, but also opportunities to touch base with the teachers.
In an additional effort to reach out to teachers in her large building (Laing has about 1200 students), Ms. Scott disseminates a regular library newsletter with tools, tips, and ongoing and upcoming events, such as book fairs, raffles for readers, author visits, and more.

When working with teachers, Ms.Scott requests feedback and uses that feedback to inform on future lessons, activities, and resources. She reports this to her teachers so they can see that their feedback is valued and to model the effective use of feedback within her community. I love this! While I always ask for feedback after working with a teacher, I have never considered explicitly sharing how their feedback impacts future lessons.
Finally, Ms. Scott carefully considers her role as collaboration facilitator; whether it be by establishing group work norms when classes are in the library, to modeling collaboration for the students when co-teaching lessons. Ms. Scott places importance on this foundation and instills it within her students.
American Association of School Librarians.(2018). AASL standards framework for learners. Chicago: ALA.