Thanks

Special Thanks:

To teachers, TLs, administrators, support staff, district management, trustees, and parents who have helped this year with workshops, technology, resources, clerical support, funds, energy, and committee representation this year: what a group you are! I am constantly reminded of how talented, supportive, gracious, and appreciative TLs are and how well supported we are. We had a very busy first year together.

A particular note of thanks and best wishes to those retiring: I know that there are way too many people leaving our ranks and we are increasingly feeling the loss of the expertise and energy you have generated and shared over the years. Please know that you will be missed and that we will look for your names under the letters to editor and your faces amongst those who come out or speak out in support of continuing to build strong school library programs. We wish you the very best. Do keep in touch. You don’t have to be a VSB employee to check in for the blog-action here, and you only have to have a gmail account to be able to enter comments. You are welcome at Winter Tonic, in MLST, in my Cubby 42 to check if I have time for coffee or lunch (713-5016), and I know Maryann et al will say the same.

Good luck, best wishes, and thanks for all you TLs-of-the-field (now off to eternal summer) have done to promote strong school library programs in Vancouver schools.

The list of things I had wanted to say today is almost as long as the list of things I have to do today!

For the rest of the TLs-of-the-field (on the short concept of summer) -- congratulations on reaching yet another (except maybe for the really new of us) last offical work day in June. Who can understand, except others who do this work, just how demanding this month can be for us!

Did you do the following? It's not too late.

• register for the September Update session you will be attending
• if applicable, help the new replacement (or additional) TL register for BOTH the Novice session on September 3 and one additional half-day
• help the administrator with a plan to facilitate their attending these sessions
• contact HELP if you should be added/deleted from the Group TL (elem or sec) list -- simply type HELP into the To ... line above (it's quite therapeutic actually!). Remember that the newly-hired aren't on the list so won't be reading this. Your help is needed.
• make sure you can check this blog from time to time over the summer as I will add occasionally from my Churchill Library summer school vantage point
• register/de-register for the re-scheduled Summer Institute -- would love to see that most of the last 13 of the now-40 spaces go to our own VSB TLs

Thank you all for the amazing ways you have contributed to the year -- by attending, presenting, calling, envisioning, doing the frontline work, battling the technologies, stewarding the collections, waiting patiently for me to get up to speed and for Maryann to come back, learning new strategies, tools, and names, moving with the times, supporting others, innovating, sharing ... you know the countless ways this community works together.

You provide the model that other "professional learning communities" look to. The collective energy is enviable and envied.

It has been my challenge to set and keep the pace, to speak for you and with you, individually and collectively. At the same time, it has been a good year ... it is with your needs and the new reading and information needs of our students that we will be planning the directions for next year.

Have a wonderful summer.