Maine State Library, Augusta

Present: Mary Moore, Kelley McDaniel, Gretchen Asam, Eileen Broderick, Cyndy Bufithis, Francie Aley, Sue Leiter, Sylvia Norton, Susan Allison, Teri Caouette, Nancy Grant, Suzan Nelson, Donna Chale, Mary Simpson, Jeff Small, Emily Graham, Margaret McNamee

PRESIDENT
Gretchen Asam opened the meeting.

MINUTES
The minutes were accepted with a minor edit.

TREASURER'S REPORT
Pam Goucher, gave a treasurer’s report sonnet in the Suzan Nelson tradition. She noted that the fiscal year runs from July to July. MASL has strong assets at this time. She explained that she had taken some scholarship money out of the checking account for access reasons and asked committee chairs to please submit budget figures.

The webpage domain renewal of $75 was discussed. It is good through 2004. Honorarium, capital expense, and miscellaneous expense lines will be added to the budget for the executive secretary.

Conference lines were renamed November Conference and March conference for this year.

A recommendation was made to budget $1500 for retreat. Expenses for Ross Todd were $700. Ralph Conant has offered to cover some of the retreat expenses. Gretchen will e-mail Maine Maritime to check on bill.

Expenses for the May Legislative Day were set at $1000 for plane fare, sub expenses, etc.
A line for the Ross Todd research project was set at $2000 for data collection, consultation, etc.
The State Board expense is usually for travel rather than substitute expense.
The postage line includes the bulk mailing permit.
A motion to accept was passed unanimously.

A resignation from Tamara Blesh was announced. Thus, Technology, Certification, and Legislative Chairs are open. At large members are Betsy York and Gerry Crocker.

COMMITTEE REPORTS
SCHOLARSHIP
Fran Haines has e-mailed a scholarship application to the Board. A motion was made and passed to award up to $911 to Ellen spring for expenses (after reimbursement from her school) to attend the AASL Conference. Gretchen will e-mail Fran to contact Ellen.

ARCHIVES
Sue Leiter noted that we have practically nothing in our files about the history of MASL. Please send anything from your personal files that could be saved. Edna will e-mail the updated handbook. She asked if we want to print hard copies of documents on the webpage like the recent Information Literacy work. For future work, please give Sue Leiter hard copies. It was decided that items related to significant issues (for example Bangor’s use of the Jack Prelutsky poem) should be kept for the files.

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
Discussion was held concerning the term and honorarium and expense payments of the executive secretary. The payment is to be $2000/500/500 (honorarium/capital expenses/miscellaneous expenses) for first year. A motion was made to start the term from July 1, 200 through June 30 and to pay $1000 of the honorarium on December 1 and June 1, expenses to be paid as needed. Details of this arrangement may be revisited as needed.

WEBPAGE
It was noted that the webpage needs to be updated regarding the new board list and e-mail addresses.

STATE OF THE STATE
Sylvia Norton has shared the news of our work with Ross Todd with the Department of Education and made a presentation to the Maine Library Commission, hopefully piquing their interest in the data collection piece and alerting them that it will entail expenses. She noted that we need to start looking at potential grant sources.

Sylvia shared the good news that the Department of Education has reconfigured positions. Betty Manchester will now head all technology issues as Director of Special Projects; Sylvia will report directly to Betty. Betty would like to establish an advisory committee on technology and has asked Sylvia to facilitate it. 6-8 people will be a focus group for important issues. Sylvia has been posting to ME-LIBS the informational letters to Superintendents that are relevant to school libraries.

Discussion was held regarding paraprofessional certification relevant to NCLB. It will only apply to library ed techs where Title One funds are distributed school-wide. Sylvia will send out the letter with this information this week. Librarians in doubt should ask their business managers or administrators if Title One funds are school wide.
Sylvia mentioned: the ASCD research brief “school libraries and their impact on student performance” of Sept. 2, 2003. http://www.ascd.org/publications/researchbrief/volume1/v1n18.html
The Principal Leadership (March 2003) article “Reinvent your school’s library and watch student academic achievement increase” by Connie Chapman and David Loertscher.
Sylvia & USC’s Elizabeth Miller will travel around the state visiting school libraries the first two weeks in October.

MEA CONFERENCE
The MEA Conference will serve as the October MASL Board meeting. Sept. 12 is the cut off date for registration. We will have a table at the conference. We need books to donate to visitors to our table (pre-read books are OK). We gave out between 120-130 last year. Members not attending the whole conference could go to oversee the table for a few hours. The display board has been returned; Ross Todd information could be put up on one panel.

PHI DELTA KAPPA MEETING
The Orono chapter of Phi Delta Kappa is hosting a meeting at Wells Common, Oct. 9 on
issues facing school librarians. Sue Leiter invites all Board members to attend as her guests. She will post information about the meeting to MeLibs.

ROSS TODD
The SLJ article “A Show of Strength” (May 2003) by Gary Hartzell, and SLJ (April 2003) by Ross Todd “How to prove you boost student achievement,” were cited. Additional information about Ross’s work can be found in Knowledge Quest. Ross is affiliated with the Rutgers Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISL). He spent time at the MASL Retreat talking about his Ohio study, about ways we could tap into that work, and his thoughts about our new standards document.

He suggested a two year plan with 3 prongs

1. Do some data collection/research – We do not have baseline data on school libraries in Maine.
2. Make our standards more student centered (Ross will work with us on this at our Nov. meeting.)
3. Do professional development on Evidence Based Practice skills.

We need to do public relations using our work to inform the public. To do this, we need a game plan.
Our next MASL Board meeting will be Sat. Nov 1 (PLEASE BRING A PIE) at the Maine State Library. The Massachusetts School Library Association meeting is Sunday, Nov 2. On Monday, Nov. 3, Ross will present a MASL workshop on EBP for school librarians (evidence-based practice) at St. Paul’s Retreat Center in Augusta.
He will give us the tools to document our work. Participants will leave with a template to use to gather evidence. Sylvia will help with the support work following the workshop. In preparation for the workshop Sylvia will write to principals on Department of Education letterhead linking EBP to the CAS and NCLB.
On Thursday, March 4, MASL will present a follow up workshop for librarians accompanied by the teachers with whom they will collaborate on EBP projects. The place has not yet been determined, possibly the new conference center in Auburn.
The MASL fee for the workshop will be $1000. The suggested fee for the two-session program is $120 for MASL members and $160 for non-members, including morning coffee and lunch. The fee for the collaborating teacher was set at $40 to encourage then to attend the March session.
There was some discussion about librarian certification in regard to data collection and about librarians who can’t guarantee a teacher coming to the second workshop.
Edna is working on a brochure with a special color and logo for this project. Mailings will be sent to members and to schools.

ALA reports were tabled until the Nov. meeting. Highlights will be sent by e-mail.

STANDARDS
Cyndy Bufithis spent days trying to put kids in the center of the new standards document. She e-mailed it to various people asking for feedback. She heard back that they wanted her to be simple and direct. It’s harder to get out of library land than Ross Todd makes it out to be.
Cyndy believes that we need what Sylvia calls “a pithy statement that we can put on everything,” so the Board brainstormed slogans for 5 minutes.

• All Maine students successfully achieve the goals of the MLRs through effective library programs.
• Students are our business
• Literate students are our business
• Student achievement
• Students succeed at your library
• Students learn in libraries
• Empowering
• Students learn with libraries
• Scholars learn with libraries
• Students + libraries = success
• Student + libraries = achievement, empowerment, success
• Comprehension
• School library programs empower kids
• School libraries empower
• Collaboration
• Team
• Empowering kids is our only business
• Empowering kids to achieve is our only business
• Knowledge
• Libraries empower understanding
• Emphasis school libraries
• Maine students
• Delivering success at the school library
• Students spell success l-i -b-r-a-r-y
• Achievement @ your library
• Libraries are at the heart of student achievement
• Libraries are at the head of student achievement
• Libraries are the heart of Maine student achievement
• Students meet the standards @ your school library

Please e-mail Cyndy if you come up with the perfect mission statement A vision statement will follow the pithy mission statement. Cyndy e-mailed the draft of the standards. Please look at them and respond to her

We lack representation from levels other than high school. Please consider the range of school libraries from primary through high school in making suggestions.

A proposed calendar was discussed:

The next joint MASL/MLA Conference will be conference October 17-18-19, 2004.
There was some discussion about when the 2004 ACTEM conference will be. It is usually the Friday before Columbus Day.
The first Saturdays of the month will still be designated for Board meetings.
Oct. 4 Board meeting will be the MEA Conference
Nov. 1 Board meeting will be at the Maine State Library Pie Smorgasbord!
Nov 3 EBP workshop at St. Paul’s Conference Center in Augusta
December 6 Board meeting with a Joint Conference meeting to follow
January 10 Board meeting with a snow date of Jan 17
February 7 Board meeting , with a Joint Conference meeting to follow, no snow date
March 4 Ross Todd workshop, place TBA
March 6 Board meeting
April 3 Board meeting with a Joint Conference meeting to follow
May 1 Board meeting
June 5 Board meeting tentative

The Meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,
Margaret McNamee,
Secretary

Nov 1 board meeting with Ross Todd