Be a Utility Player

This is my twentieth year working for the Dallas ISD, but my first year as a school librarian. Until now, I was a classroom teacher in several different areas. I have earned distinctions, won awards and brought programs back from the dead, but a few years back, I needed a new challenge. Enter librarian school. I was hired at the middle school right down the street from the high school where I had been working, and I walked in on a mission. I wanted to make myself completely indispensable. In the middle of a pandemic, how did I become an MVP on my campus and the kind of employee that my administration says they just can’t live without? I will talk about the goals I set, big and small, and the ways I have made myself useful while sneaking in library advocacy and promoting library programs.

This is my twentieth year working for the Dallas ISD, but my first year as a school librarian. Until now, I was a classroom teacher in several different areas. I have earned distinctions, won awards and brought programs back from the dead, but a few years back, I needed a new challenge. Enter librarian school. I was hired at the middle school right down the street from the high school where I had been working, and I walked in on a mission. I wanted to make myself completely indispensable. In the middle of a pandemic, how did I become an MVP on my campus and the kind of employee that my administration says they just can’t live without? I will talk about the goals I set, big and small, and the ways I have made myself useful while sneaking in library advocacy and promoting library programs.