PLUMSTED: Team shares its passion for literacy

Media center personnel outline previous successes, future projects

by David Kilby, Special Writer
PLUMSTED — With a mix of creativity and technical expertise, the Plumsted School District’s two-member media center team shared the accomplishments and future plans for the district’s media centers.
   At the Board of Education meeting June 12, the school district’s media specialist, Dennis Wilno, and Kodi Sohl, a business teacher at New Egypt High School, explained the progress made at the media centers over the past few years.
   While explaining that the district’s media centers are in the midst of a five-year plan, Mr. Wilno and Ms. Sohl shared how they have developed working relationships with the PTO, parent volunteers, the National Honor Society, and Senior Seminar, all in attempt to make the media centers a more relevant part of the students’ learning experience and thereby increasing the overall literacy of the student body.
   Since the beginning of the plan two years ago, they have written a media center procedure manual and implemented a library automation software program called Follett Destiny, which places all of the media centers’ resources in one common database so they’re available to students no matter which district media center the students are in.
   They have also initiated many library programs and incentives, such as Blind Date with a Book, “Poet-Tree”, and Get Caught Reading, all programs that award students with credits when completed. For example, in the Get Caught Reading program, students can earn homework passes, food gift certificates and raffle tickets for the grand prize, a Kindle Fire high definition e-reader.
   Another program they would like to implement in the 2013-14 school year is the “One book-One School” program, where the schools give one book a cross-curricular focus, approaching it from various different subject angles, such as science and history, in each of the respective classes.
   Mr. Wilno and Ms. Sohl said they are very passionate about literacy and its important role in society.
   To that end at the conclusion of their presentation, they quoted Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, who said “So strong is the link between literacy and being a useful member of society that some states use grade-level reading statistics as a factor in projecting future prison construction.”
   The incentive to improve the school districts media centers was started by Dorothy Mount, a former teacher and principal for the district and a historian for New Egypt who donated $40,000 to Plumsted schools before passing away a few years ago.
   Mr. Wilno and Ms. Sohl are interested in keeping up the momentum of Ms. Mount’s incentive, and said many students aren’t receiving the impression that reading can be an “enjoyment and lifelong love”.
   ”If you’re just forced to read something, it’s different than if you get to pick the book you want to read,” Mr. Wilno said. “I try to get as many magazines to cover every possible interest so at least the child is reading.”
   Ms. Sohl, who was recognized later in the meeting by the board as one of the district’s four teachers of the year, agreed.
   ”Reading is a skill,” she said. “The more you do it the better you get. Some students say ‘I’m just not a good reader,’ and we believe that’s just because they haven’t found something they’re interested in reading.”
   The pair also mentioned since it’s such a small school district, with a high school of just 550 students, they can offer a book collection that is specifically tailored to the interests of their students.
   ”Every library collection is unique,” Mr. Wilno said. “It’s like a fingerprint. It’s supposed to mirror the population and represent (the community).”
   He said district’s media centers are fortunate to have a board that supports them, adding that some schools are firing librarians as they trim their budgets.
   ”We can give you study after study showing that the more well-funded the library program is, the better students reading scores are,” he said.
   Ms. Sohl challenged the trending presumption that the internet has taken the place of books, and offered a proverbial saying among librarians, saying “Google can give you a million answers. A librarian can give you the right one.”
   It is the goal of this media center team, they said, to bring New Egypt students from “information overload” to “media literacy” so students can learn how to think critically and find the right answers to their questions.