Library Profiles: Parkview Junior/Senior High School
Education is all about learning your ABC’s and one-two-threes, so the old expression goes. However, at Parkview Junior/Senior High School in Orfordville, Wis., it’s the CCC that has played a large role in education, with a teacher-librarian playing a central role.
What is the CCC? It is the Parkview School District’s Curriculum Coordinating Committee, which prepares the professional development schedule for the district. Parkview Junior/Senior High School Library Media Specialist Ann Buehl helped establish the CCC in 1990, and as the committee chair, she continues to improve the academic performance of nearly 550 students in her building and 1130 students district-wide through it and the school library media center.
A major recent CCC initiative has been differentiated instruction, in which teachers individualize lessons based on the different learning needs of their students instead of teaching to an entire class as if all learners are alike. The process has significantly benefited struggling students because teachers can differentiate based on student readiness, interests and learning styles. Buehl has taken an active role in differentiated instruction by selecting and purchasing resources and promoting their use among teachers and students.
“To have an effective library media program, library media specialists need to be an integral part of a district’s curriculum development,” Buehl says.
When Buehl is not working with the CCC or on another committee that develops the district’s technology policies, Buehl is busy planning and executing teaching and learning activities for students and running the school’s very successful library media center. Parkview’s library is unusual in that it maintains regular evening hours open to the entire community to compensate for the limited size and hours of the Orfordville Public Library. Buehl says the community has been very receptive to the expansion of evening hours over the years, from one evening eight years ago to the current four evenings a week. Students also have shown interest, with up to 40 students utilizing the library on a given night, and senior citizens have also benefited.
“It is wonderful to see senior citizens taking community computer classes in our school,” Buehl says. “Some of them have remarked to me that they this was the first time they had been in the school in more than 40 years. Our facilities should be available to citizens of all ages who reside in the district.”