Hello,
My two elementary library colleagues and I are in the process of developing a TEVAL plan to implement next year, and we are really curious about other librarians’ experiences with this. Our district is giving us a LOT of independence with this. In many ways that is great, but we’re also feeling like we need a little more direction.
Right now we’re specifically looking at the student evaluation piece. We have it narrowed down to evaluating student growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year in grades 2 and 5 (our elementary-only district has one Pre-K and K school and three schools for grades 1-6). We feel pretty solid on identifying information literacy skills for grade 2 and designing pre and post assessments, etc. Where we’re feeling a bit lost is for grade 5, especially since this year was the first year we moved from a fully fixed library class schedule to a combination fixed/flex schedule with grades 1-3 fixed and grades 4-6 flex. With the flex schedule, we’re afraid that it’s going to be more difficult to uniformly integrate our identified information literacy skills that we’re evaluating into teachers’ classroom lessons and projects throughout our own schools and throughout our district.
If any of our wonderful library colleagues out there (especially those working with flex schedules in elementary or middle schools) would be willing to share their experiences with this TEVAL business, we’d love to hear your input. And if you know of any TEVAL-related resources online that you have found helpful, please share! And of course I plan to compile the feedback I get and share with the rest of the list.
Thanks so much!
Sandra Fitzpatrick
School Librarian
The Peck Place Elementary School
500 Peck Lane
Orange, CT 06511
(203) 891-8034