Tammy's Page

Greetings Tammy,

I'm Mike McQueen, teacher librarian and founder of http://www.GettingBoysToRead.com. Like many school districts, we are in a financial crises. Our school board recently proposed to eliminate ALL 20+ middle school teacher librarians and also cut all 90+ elementary schools to half time. Since we are the biggest district in all of Colorado, we worry this will cause other districts to follow suit. We launched an online movement and are going to do our best to put up a good fight.

If possible, please visit our Facebook page and "Like" us http://www.facebook.com/SupportSchoolLibraries . Adding a positive comment and sharing with your friends would help our morale as well. The board finalizes the budget soon so your timely support would be greatly appreciated!

Sincerely,

Mike McQueen

Teacher Librarian at McLain HS

Lakewood, CO

Hi Tammy,

I'm a teacher librarian & recently started a community based blog for getting boys to read - http://GettingBoysToRead.com. Please send me a friend request if you'd like to network, share ideas, and learn more about getting boys to read.

Sincerely,
Mike McQueen

LET'S NETWORK HERE TOO (request me as a friend):
My FACEBOOK Profile
My TWITTER Profile

Hi Tammy,
Based on 36 years of experience in this field, I feel you have to be involved in a planning process. Indeed, without a written strategic plan, we are forced to put the many initiatives we become involved in on a “time available” basis. Since we are a support and service function, many of these initiatives are never given the attention they need. Either we have not consistently communicated our priorities to our superiors or they don’t agree that our initiatives are important enough to warrant the dedication of our time and resources. Without a strategic plan, we have nothing to anchor our schedule in eyes of administrators. We are hard-pressed to negotiate for time and resources if we can’t clearly show where we are going. Even if our superiors don’t entirely agree with our priorities, they will at least see that we have been thoughtful and deliberate if we engage in a formal planning process. Better yet, if through this planning process we align our priorities with at least some of the priorities of our leaders, they will be more receptive at budget-building time. Like it or not, we work at the pleasure of our administrators. This has been a driving force in my writing a book and articles about strategic planning for teacher-librarians. I’m under contract (Libraries Unlimited) to update my book.
http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/GR8835.aspx

I hope I haven’t confused you too much.
John

Thanks Tammy. It's been quite a busy semester. :o) Take care.

I sent you a message with your interview questions added.

Hey Tammy, I sent you a friend request so I can send you a message with my responses to your interview questions. I will send it to you tomorrow from work.