The students at Lumpkin County Elementary School had one very urgent question for teacher-turned-librarian Jessica Conner when she announced last year that she would be moving out of her classroom to take over as the school’s new Media Specialist: “Are you bringing the hamsters?”
The students were of course referring to the large collection of plush hamsters which adorned Conner’s classroom.
“I had all these hamsters from my classroom theme for 15 years, and I had to bring them to the library,” Conner explained.
Fortunately for Conner and her students, Deborah McCrary, a prior librarian, had already acquired a small gazebo for the Media Center.
After assuming her new position last summer, Conner moved the gazebo to a special area of the library and made it a home for her army of stuffed hamsters, leading one of her students to affectionately label it the “Hamster Hut.”
“The whole zone is called the Book Nook, and it encompasses the Hamster Hut,” said Conner with a smile. “The beanbags are over there, it has flexible seating. I don’t mind them to have a hamster in the Hamster Hut with them, so long as they’re reading to it.”
CONTAGIOUS PASSION
Conner taught first through fourth grade during her fifteen years at LCES, but her primary focus was third grade. She obtained both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of North Georgia in Early Childhood Education and Special Education.
“And I’m back at it again,” Conner said. “I’m now getting a second Masters-level certification in media.”
Conner said that her decision to switch from being a teacher to a media specialist came down to the opportunity to impact the lives of a greater number of students.
“This is my first year in this role, and I’m absolutely loving it. I loved teaching, and thought I was always uniquely built to do that, and to guide students creatively, but moving into this role helped me to do that for more,” she said. “I get to teach every kid in this school. And I get to serve every teacher in this school. So I moved from teaching 25, which I loved, to I think we’re up to maybe 600 students now. And I still get to teach writing, reading, language skills and library skills every week, to every class.”
Conner said her primary goal as the Media Center Specialist is to provide a diverse set of learning activities for students in a safe and welcoming environment. She believes the library’s central location within LCES reflects its importance.
“We’re literally in this building right in the center of the school, so they have to pass through here day in and day out just to get to where they’re going. And so I try to reflect positivity in every interaction we have. I feel almost like their little coach, or their mentor, as they’re walking through, just in passing,” Conner said.
LCES Principal Stacie Gerrells believes that Conner has the right qualifications and qualities to excel in her new role as the school’s Media Specialist.
“Mrs. Conner is such an asset to Lumpkin County Elementary School,” she said. “She has taught almost 600 class lessons this year. She holds multiple individual reading conferences with students on a daily basis. She has created a positive, welcoming environment in our media center and always has a smile on her face. We are blessed to have her as our media specialist.”
LIBRARY LIFE
Conner described a typical day in the Media Center as a veritable whirlwind of activity, with students constantly coming in and out to process books, get technical support for their school-supplied Chromebooks, and make use of dedicated learning zones like the aforementioned Book Nook and a fully-stocked “Makerspace.”
Makerspaces are special collaborative workspaces where various tools are provided to students for the purpose of creating and exploring.
“[The Makerspace] does have the Lego wall, and it has all sorts of other different STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] centers, puzzles and games. But the Lego wall itself was applied for as a grant by the previous librarian, Ms. Kim Jones… So I can’t take credit for acquiring it all, but I sure do appreciate that they did; we’re utilizing it daily.”
The Makerspace is also stocked with arts and crafts supplies to help stimulate students’ imaginations, a feature Conner said is always popular with students.
“You would be shocked to see how excited they get about popsicle sticks and glue,” she said. “… I have some options of things that they can make if they’d like to, but if not, they can make anything that they want out of the materials that are provided.”
Conner is grateful that she currently has some help in the Media Center in the form of a full-time paraprofessional assistant, but that situation can always change according to the needs of the school.
“So I began the year with a full-time para, and planned our media programs around that,” she said. “And then they had to make some shifts because someone fell ill, and they had to make some adjustments.”
Conner’s other sources of assistance include the occasional substitute, as well as two high school interns that come from a Teaching as a Profession class at the high school.
“Every day is quite different. You’re never going to get exactly the same thing when you come in, but it starts at 7:30. The students start coming in, and that stays constant all day long. They can be sent individually by the teachers, but on top of that, at the same time, I have anywhere from five to seven class sessions a day that are going on,” Conner said.
And although she is only required to work until 3:30, it is not uncommon to find Conner working away until 5:00 in the afternoon.
“I’m planning our lessons, we’re re-shelving our books, I’m curating the collection. So collection development is a big part of my role here, too. I comb through all the books and I look for how they circulate. I weed out the ones that might be from before the moon landing, for example. And I try to look into what I need to re-order, what I need to maintain, what I need to fix. There’s been a lot of that, especially with us moving into the new building. I want our collection to be top-notch,” Conner said.
CHECKING IN
The LCES Media Center hosts a number of different activities and challenges to advance its primary goal of helping get children involved in reading, from a March Madness-style Battle of the Book Characters, where kids get to vote for their favorite, to an Accelerated Reading program where students earn points for completing short quizzes about the books they read.
“So I set that up, it’s basically quarterly. We’ll pull in all these prizes and I set them up at the tables, and each table has a different point value. And they cash in their points for those things. So they’ve been mighty excited… Some of them are really into accumulating those points to cash them in. So that’s kind of a positive reward,” Conner explained.
Another opportunity for reading occurs every Monday after school, when the fifth grade Book Club gathers. Conner often fields suggestions from the club about the interesting books that they discover outside of the school library.
“I listen to them all the time talking about the great programs that they’re running across at the public library. And I use a lot of their suggestions of books that they’re finding there that aren’t here to help me curate the collection here,” Conner said. She indicated that the public library will be hosting a field trip in April to tour the library and promote its summer reading program.
“My hope is that we can get these fifth graders to then present the program to other kids around the school. We thought maybe if other kids were promoting it, they’d all take part. We’re trying to build this collaborative bridge with the public library,” Conner said.
As for getting parents in on the reading process, Conner said that the Media Center has a feature that appears in many of the newsletters that go out from the administration.
“I try to tell the parents about the different stations happening. I try to encourage them to read at any opportunity they can, to read with their children at home,” Conner said.
Conner was also able to meet many parents in person during the annual Scholastic Book Fair, which occurred in October.
“I saw a lot of parents during the book fair… I was open until 4:00 each day after school to allow parents to come in with their students if they wanted to do that,” she said.
STAYING BUSY
Conner said there is so much work to be done in the Media Center that sometimes it's difficult “to know when it’s time to go home.”
When she does manage to call it a day, Conner looks forward to spending time with her four-year old girl, who is in pre-Kindergarten.
“I love spending time with her,” Conner said of her daughter. “We read a lot, we play a lot of games, we take adventures. Also, as a family the three of us enjoy on weekends going to thrift stores everywhere in search of books and stuffed animal-characters to go with our collection. Finding things to use for the kids, in our Makerspace or whatnot… it’s quite fun.”
As for Conner’s new role at LCES, it seems to be exactly what she hoped it would be, despite the intensity.
“We are very busy, and I love it,” she said. “I wanted it to be that way. If we’re the heart of the school, we need to be pumping… and we are. You never know what’s going to happen in any given moment, but it’s always a thrilling adventure.”