Project ENABLE Webinar Transcript: School Librarians Part 1: Project ENABLE School Librarians Present Their Experiences Serving Children with Disabilities

December 12, 2014

Myhill: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Project Enable School Librarians Present Their Experiences Serving Children with Disabilities webinar. My name is William Myhill, and I'll be facilitating today's webinar. This webinar is presented by Project Enable - a collaboration of Syracuse University's Center for Digital Literacy and the Burton Blatt Institute. It is funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Just a few quick notes on the webinar system. We use Blackboard Collaborate, this system makes it possible for us to conduct workshops over the Internet from just about any computer with an Internet connection and web browser. Unfortunately, there may be computer issues inherent in your systems that are beyond our control, which is why it is important for you to check your systems prior to the session. During today's session, please mute all microphones. Also we advise you to close any applications you may have running on your computer because they may interfere with your successful experience. If your computer goes to sleep after sitting idle for a while, remember to periodically tap the spacebar just to let the webinar system know you are there.

Finally, if you have questions or comments during the presentation, you may raise your virtual hand, located above the list of participants or type in the chat room discussion below the list of participants.

We are now ready to begin.

Today, we are pleased to present Project Enable School Librarians Present Their Experiences Serving Children with Disabilities. The first of two free webinars for K-12 school librarians everywhere, to learn about creating inclusive library settings and programs to effectively serve all students with disabilities. This webinar, Project Enable School Librarians Present Their Experiences Serving Children with Disabilities, will address the issues of identifying the library needs of diverse students with disabilities, evaluating school library accessibility, developing inclusive library collections, applying Universal Design principles and Universal Design for Learning strategies for library programs and services,

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and providing innovative promising and model practices for school library inclusiveness.

Our panelists today are 2013 Project Enable workshop alumni, Kendra Allen, School Library Media Coordinator at Holly Grove Middle School in Holly Springs, North Carolina, Linda Houck, Teacher/Librarian for the Wilson School District in West Long, Pennsylvania, and Sean Fallon, the Library Media Specialist for the upper Deerfield school district in southern New Jersey.

We begin with Kendra.

Kendra L. Allen became the school Library Media Coordinator at Holly Grove Middle School in Holly Springs, North Carolina when it opened on July 2010.Before opening Holly Grove Middle, she began her library career as the School Library Media Coordinator at Holly Ridge Middle School. Her graduate research focus was on library services for students with disabilities. She has an article published in School Libraries Monthly published in 2010, co-authored with Sandra Hughes Hassel, and based on her Master’s paper, the school library media program and special education programs.

Welcome Kendra, you may begin.

Allen: Thank you, William.

Holly Grove Middle School is a large middle school. We're a year-round, calendar school, which means that our school operates from a July start to a June finish each year. We have grades sixth through eight, with approximately 1450 students right now. Twenty-three percent of those students qualify for free and reduced lunch programs. And our average class size is roughly 32 students - to try give you a picture of what we're looking like, here, in North Carolina.

Of those students that we have, 205 students have IEPs, (individualized education plans) and an additional 50 students have 504 plans, which also address accommodations and modifications, but without the formality of an individualized education plan. And so, we have a system set up in our school where we have the special students who have been identified with IEPs and 504 plans in both fully inclusive settings as well as two self-contained classes. Our fully included students are served within their classes with math and language arts by Special Education teachers who co-teach with the regular content area teachers. We also, with the self-contained classes, have one class that is set aside for students with intellectual disabilities of a moderate class rotation. We also have a self-contained class of students with autism, with a designation that doesn't allow them to be fully included in the regular classroom setting. So that gives you a picture of what we look like across the board in terms of students that we're serving.

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Looking at slide number two, specifically one of the things I've chosen to focus on is Universal Design for Learning. First, you have to think about Universal Design, that being the concept that's coming out of architecture and design. For instance, if you have doors that have handicap accessibility, that you have buttons you can push and the door will open for you, they're designed according to ADA guidelines, however you have other individuals who equally benefit from the presence of those doors, including individuals with things in their hands and they're unable to turn a handle. You have someone pushing baby strollers or other carts of that nature.

But you have a variety of individuals who are not the specific target of the door design, but who also are benefiting from the door design. So what that is transferring to with UDL is that you may do something in your classroom that is targeted for specific students, specific group of students, however, all of the students in that classroom can benefit from that particular approach, not just the students for whom it was originally intended. And so, with that, you create a very inclusive environment and you are not setting students apart, rather, they're being included into what's happening in your programming.

There are three basic principles of UDL: multiple means of expression, multiple means of action and expression, and multiple means of engagement. And we’ll go further into those.

The first one is multiple means of representation. So looking at the what of a situation. Here in our media center and in professional development with some of our teachers, we’ve focused on simple solutions. For instance, signage in the media center. You have an ability to do things with large print– very clear, very distinct words. When I do signage in the media I also include images as well. So in the nonfiction section of the room, I have a sign that may say sports to indicate where in the 700s those sports books are and I have pictures of different sports balls, also on the sign.[No sound]

-- so that if the language barrier is the issue, that the identification of the object in the picture, the visual cue, is also accompanying it. I try to keep everything very clean with a white background, black text, very bold, very basic, not a lot of fancy curly Qs or anything like that to keep it clear.

With closed captioning, all of our teachers are instructed that any time they show any type of video, whether it's animated or live action, that they always, if there's a closed captioning feature, turn on the closed captioning feature. It's intended, obviously for an audience with hearing impairments, however, every student in the room can be benefitted by that reinforcement of both seeing the text and hearing it at the same time.

We also look at lesson design, visual versus verbal. For instance I'm a visual

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person. I like to see it. I can understand math problems if I see them as opposed to you trying to explain it to me with words. And so, trying to understand how our students are learning and making sure we're mashing it together, you're not focusing on one direction versus the other.

With regard to a variety of research resources when we look at designing projects for our students. Our ancient Egypt project, for example, we have different topics that I sat down and collaborated with the sixth-grade social studies teachers on. When we looked at what types of resources we wanted the students to be accessing for their research, we looked at a variety of websites. So we self-selected for these students, because it’s a first semester, sixth-grade project. We selected a variety of websites for them to use, we looked at the readability of those websites. We also included, for all of the topics in that project, videos as well, that the student could watch, trying to mix up the types of sources that they were able to get their information from, that it wasn't just text-based, that they could watch a video and listen to something as well.

With regards to multiple formats in your collection, from graphic novels, to audio books, to large print, to adapted and abridged text. When I chose audio books for our collection, I looked at what the language arts teachers chose for their reading room and I selected audio book text because I had a limited budget and audio books are expensive. I chose audio books that matched up with what the language arts teach would be using in lit circles and whole-class novel sets. So that if you have a student that needs that reinforcement of the audio with their print text, that that's available for the teachers to check out. So, I do keep those separate for the teachers to only check out as opposed to student checkouts like playaways and objects of that nature. These are meant as reinforcement for those students that need both the audio as well as the print.

Moving on to action and expression. We think about how a lot of us talk about inquiry projects and our various design components, that the different ways that students can express themselves is very important. I have students who might be able to tell you about something, but they might not be able to write about it as well. So also with design and final products, when thinking about executive function, if it has to be very organized in a certain way, and very clear - it has to be very linear- this has to come first and this has to come second. Sometimes you have students that are struggling with the executive function of that order. For instance, when you have something like tablet where students can place things in random positions all over the screen or discovery, has their board builder, students have that power to locate where on their final product they'd like to put something and that is less about the organization than it is about the content. You're trying to get out what you're actually assessing and you're also giving them that freedom of expression.

Also understanding that with graphic organizers, we tier those as well. We don't necessarily have the same graphic organizer for every student and every class. We break the graphic organizers back and we say, this is what we want for this

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population of students given their needs. This is a different graphic organizer for our higher level thinking students. And so, noting that you can differentiate graphic organizers for research note-taking as well as everything else.

In one of my self-contained classes, I have students that are more or less nonverbal. We look at ways that they can communicate with me in response to a book that we may be reading, but it may not require speech. So for instance, I have colored [indiscernible]. You may not be able to tell me, when I ask you, what color is the wagon? You may not be able to vocalize the word red. However, I have large dots on a paper and you can touch the color red dot instead. So you're still getting the same information. I make sure that I have different ways of phrasing things, as well as different means of communicating. It may be a touch, it may be a movement, as opposed to a verbalization, in terms of how they are communicating with you.

Looking at the third principle of engagement, you have students who function very well with routine. For instance, I see my two self-contained classes, the same day, every week. They come on a very set schedule. This works very well for them. They know that one class comes on Tuesday, the other class comes on Friday. The class that comes on Friday does library, then lunch. That's my students with autism class, and those students, if you looked at how they might use their schedule boards, for instance, on how they move throughout their day, this reinforces that. That first we do library, then we do lunch. It becomes a routine for them that they know when they come, they generally sit in the same spots every time they come; I'm going to sit in the same spot when they arrive. They have a level of expectation that there is a routine to do what we do, that this is what's going to happen. And we function in that very routine way because that is what works for that particular class.

On the other side, I have complete open access. For some of my students that struggle with the large class setting where there are lots of students milling around and we're all looking for books at the same time, a lot of my students with special needs, who are fully inclusive students, will often return to me on passes to come for open access reasons so they can work independently or so I can work with them one-on-one outside of the bounds of a formal class visit. This allows them to create a sense of independence in the room as well as get that one-on-one attention that they might want but they might not want it with other students around. Also with recruiting interests - looking at how they can make decisions through their own choices - we do very open, very liberal, you can take as many books as you want. I don't say “you can only have three books at a time,” because if you're excited about this -- and I was looking at my top patrons earlier today – that some of my top ten patrons as far as their activity in checking out books this year, are students that would that would fill in that 250 students with either an IEP or 504. They're very active users because we give them open range to do what they want to do. I also seek a lot of student input as well. What do you want to see? What are we doing well? What do you want to see more of? I survey the students a lot to get their feedback.

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Finally, the keys to success I would say is relationships. Knowing your students. I think one of the best things I’ve ever done is that I don't start with the students in their self-contained classes. Their first visit isn't them coming to me, their first exposure to me, is me going to them. I want to see them in their classroom. I want to see how they function in their normal environment where they spend most of their day, so I can see how they interact with their teacher and how they interact with each other in an environment they're most comfortable in. Then we can make that transition to the media center better for them. Also, when they see you, they know you, and you develop this relationship so that when they come here they've seen me before and they're like "oh hey, it's you, I know who you are, I recognize your face; you aren't a stranger to me." A lot of it is making an effort. None of us are necessarily experts in the field, it's not our area of certification, but it's a matter of intention. I'm going to make this a focus, I'm going to have a goal for myself to try things, take risks. I take risks all the time. And it's basically making an effort and being flexible. You take a risk, you may try something and it's going to fail miserably, but you've tried and you’ve learned and so then you try something else different the next time around. And that's what I have.

Thank you, William.

Myhill: Thank you, Kendra.

Really wonderful examples of different ways that you've found to implement the Universal Design learning goals. I'm wondering if there are other people right now who have any particular questions for Kendra about those issues and her examples.

I'll give people a few seconds if they'd like to type in a question or raise their hand? As well as our other panelists, Linda and Sean, if you have a follow-up question for Kendra, please feel free to ask. [ Pause ]

Sean: In terms of preparation time, how long is your preparation, if you're doing Universal Design lesson?

How much time goes into preparing for one of those lessons?

Allen: It depends. Usually if I'm collaborating with classroom teachers, our teachers have a one-hour planning session every week. I'm attending their planning session and trying to design, and then I'm working on my own end. I might walk away with action steps now that we've got a plan. I'm going to go and follow-up on these things on my own time for when we meet back next week. It may take us a couple of weeks, partly because we are year-round so we have multitrack systems. Not everyone's on the same schedule and doing the same things at the same time. We do generally plan farther in advance because we have to, because everyone's going to be starting to do things at different times. So it's a matter of focus and it also means that I might be working with just sixth-grade social studies and I may not

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be able to give the same amount of time and energy to another grade level or another subject area.

Myhill: Kendra, there's a question for you from Carol Sharon. It says “How do you initially get teachers to support you and support your working with their classes?”

Allen: Hi, Carol. I am rather pushy. I tell them I have great things for them. A lot of times, it might be me frontloading and saying look at all this great stuff or showing them things and talking about ideas and just continuing to push my own agenda, I guess you could say, until something clicks. And it doesn't always work. But I also look for end roads. If there's one individual or two individuals who you can tell are a little more receptive, I just run with those individuals. And I may keep working at the others who are a little tougher, but the individuals who seem to be a little more flexible and seem to be open to ideas, I go with them because a lot of times people are skeptical until they see you're successful with somebody else - because they're less of a risk-taker. So if you have the risk-taker who says, “I'll give it a try. If it works, great, if it doesn't, we won't do it again.” If you have that person that is willing to take that risk, then I’m going to run with that person. I'm going to work really hard to make sure it's successful with that person, because other people might join after that.[ Dead air for five minutes ]

Thao: Hi, William? [ Pause ] Hi, William? [ Pause ] I think we lost you. You might want to dial into the phone line, William, if you're not able to -- I'll send you the number again.

Myhill: Thao, do you hear me now?

Thao: Yes.

Myhill: Okay...I think maybe I was causing some of the problem.Linda, can you hear me now?

Houck: Yes.

Myhill: All right...my apologies, I may have lost my mic connection at the plug-in level, let me jump back to where we were, Linda.

Linda Houck is a teacher/librarian at Cornwall Terrace Elementary School in Westlawn, Pennsylvania on the outskirts of Reading, and has been for the past thirteen years. Linda, additionally, has taught grades one, two and five, arts and physical education, has worked in preschools, coached, applied instructional technology to staff, and taught graduate level courses in reading and differentiated instruction.

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Welcome, Linda. Would you please go ahead?

Houck: Thank you, William. A little bit about my district. It is a middle class district. We are composed of two middle schools, a high school and five elementary schools. Out of the five elementaries, I would say we are a little more economically challenged. But our district as a whole is technologically proactive and...[ indiscernible ]

Thao: Linda, sorry, can you enable your microphone again, please?

Houck: Sure – want me to start at the beginning?

Thao: Just maybe a sentence back – thank you.

Houck: So, we are more technologically proactive and forward thinking. We have a lot of technology available to us, which I think is wonderful. In our building, we have autistic support, primary and intermediate learning support and our autistic support is both verbal and nonverbal.

So we’re going to take a look at some of the barriers that students with disabilities encounter in the school library. I think one thing would be that the environment needs to be more conducive for learning. What do I mean by that?

Sometimes the space is not right. It might be too small of a space, or too large of a space to be able to fit in some of the equipment that students bring in with them – whether it be a wheelchair or longer. Sometimes the furniture is such that only chairs might be available when carpeting, beanbag chairs and sofas and other types of balance balls could be brought in.

Sometimes there are distractions outside. I know we have distractions above us, if they're moving furniture, we hear it in the library. The kids want to know what that is, “Is it a thunderstorm?” We are next the band room so we hear everyone practicing their instruments. And we do have the autistic support diagonal from us on the main floor and so there are melt downs or other issues. Also, there's a learning support classroom there, and a kindergarten class down in our area, and there could be a lot of distractions outside. Even for students who don't have disabilities, sometimes the distractions can be a problem.

I know that when presenting things, I need to present things in a variety of ways. Using some cooperative learning activities always helps. And using a variety of means to guess responses from the students also helps. Because, as Kendra pointed out, not everyone is able to respond, maybe verbally. Classroom set-up needs to be conducive for learning and for people to be able to get around. I'm in elementary, so I need to be aware of things being at the right eye level and also having lots of pictures, in addition to words, because not all students K-5 can read.

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Having clear expectations and routines are so important. I spend so much of the first nine weeks going over the same thing, trying to break it apart into small chunks so that everyone's clear about what we need to do and it doesn't change from time to time. I've found that students who have disabilities really appreciate that a lot, as well as a student without. The materials that I choose need to match different learning styles and being aware of things that can and can't be done, depending upon the disability. We have several students who need to have amplified hearing. We did had someone who needed to use braille. We’ve had a lot of different types of students over the years that you just have to be aware of when you're planning your lesson. Being aware of making choices and setting choices for students, instead of always dictating, is great. Having multisensory types of activities that address different learning styles, I try to be aware of that and use those. Being very flexible, as Kendra also said, what you receive from students, the way I present things, and provide options.

Materials should be applicable and at appropriate levels. They should be motivating, they should be interesting. Keeping in mind that the design delivery of instruction needs to have multiple representations of the same information. When we take a look at books, we not only take a look at a hard cover, I can hold it in my hand book, but e-books and other digital recorded books, so that we're able to have something for all users. Try to collaborate with other educators so that authentic learning tasks and assessments are designed.

I also want to talk about what I think assistive technology is. And each of us really need to think about this. I say it's any kind of technology that can be used to enhance someone being independent, with or without a disability. Often people with disabilities have a hard enough time accomplishing even the daily tasks of schools, talking with and having friends. That can be a challenge. Assistive technology can be a simple tool or a device such as a pencil grip, a magnifying glass, a book holder, large print books, books on tape, wheelchair or walker, earphones, playaways, e-books, or closed captioning. That is so important, I agree with what Kendra said earlier.

There are such things that are a little more high-tech that some people may not be aware of such as automatic page-turners. There are computerized communication systems and some of our autistic students use that. Voice recognition programs and screen enlargement programs. We’ve used those over the years with our visually impaired and students who have a hard time writing, their disability is a writing challenge. We have amplified hearing and speech devices. There are text and voice screen readers. We use smart boards, we have iPads, iPods, and any other piece of equipment that increases, maintains, or improves the functioning of all individuals with or without disabilities. That's what I think the assistive technology is. By promoting greater independence, people are able to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish by using the technology. It changes the way, and the method, that students with disabilities are interactive with and relationships that they're able to perform.

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Some fundamental assistive technologies that I think that all school librarians need, and they're almost basics, are books available in a variety of formats. Just again, repeating what Kendra said earlier, you need an actual book in your hand.E-books, books on tape, CDs, playaways, computer of some sort, iPods, iPads, white board, a tape player, being able to have movies, whether it be digital, using an Apple TV, CD or DVD, or a video with closed captioning, overhead projector, some type of recording device, earphones. Not only so they can listen to an e-book and have a more personalized individual experience, but some students have a hard time with noise and I know for some of our autistic students, they'll wear earphones and it just muffles the sounds. Alternative keyboards or some type of alternative input device such as a wand or a stick or a track ball. I know with the iPads, students, disabled or not, just sometimes need to use that because they don't have the fine motor skills. Voice to type and screen readers and screen enlargement applications are wonderful, but I know they're very costly and I can't say we have them in all our buildings, but I do know they are available within our district. Picture boards, large-print books, some type of a magnifier, even if it couldn't be on the screen and a Brailler, because you can get braille books from different sources, but being able to have a Brailler to create the braille is wonderful. Book holders, adaptive pencil grips and all these allow all learners, especially those with disabilities, to participate in educational activities more fully.

In my library, these are some of the ways that I've implemented the use of assistive technology. We have an instructional technologist, and actually I think there are three this year, that work with all the teachers in the district. They advise of different products and the different devices and programs out there.They provide us with instruction and support of those materials. Our district has moved to a one-on-one philosophy. They started to institute that the last year or the year before at the high school, this year in the middle school, and started at some in the elementary as well. It's a technology phase-in plan and next year, we should complete our implementation process when the elementary students receive what they will be using. K-1 will have Nexus 7 tablets and grades 2-5 will have Chrome books. One of my projects this year, is doing QR code so that it will be easy for kindergarten, first grade to get into e-books and to hear book summaries and little excerpts by scanning QR codes maybe that another student made.

We currently have stand-alone computers, laptops, iPads, iPods, and nook options. They are available one-to-one in the library. Again, I'm seeing a class with 22 students at a time. Some of these devices were purchased by our Technology Department, Library funds that we have within our own program, grants and PTOs. I know everyone will say, what about the grants? We do have grant writers for the district and there are different venture grants and grants available through like partners in education that we have within our district that you can apply for. Some of the librarians have received them. Initially, they were used for students who were in the autistic support and learning support classrooms, but then about a half dozen were purchased to use as a center option in the libraries.

In an effort to move to 24/7 accessibility of the different resources we have in our

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school, we want it to go to a mobile website, so we increased the number of our devices and for us in particular, we rolled it out during parent involvement night and show parents how to access the different technologies that were out there. For instance, grade level-appropriate applications and our LIB guides, which is our library websites that have links to a lot of the resources out there. Any recommendations that I have for a school librarian pretty much mirror those, like Kendra said, because we need to meet the needs of all students, especially students with disabilities.

Attitude, I think is everything. So be positive. And you need to work diligently to be inclusive in your planning and practice. Keep that in mind. Be smiling, be happy; give them the approach that makes them feel welcome. And don't take a look at the disability first, take a look at the person.

Collaborate and take a team approach to meet the needs of all students using best practices and support for instruction. Communicate with the classroom teacher, review the varying learning needs and abilities of your students when you plan your instruction and you're choosing your informational resources that compliment them. Not every tool will work for every student. Stay updated on the new technologies and new apps. Differentiate instruction by providing representation of the same information. Provide options for learning and provide options for demonstration of what has been learned. Even something simple, where to sit and what to sit on are helpful.

Thank you.

Myhill: Thank you very much, Linda.

I have a few questions I wanted to follow-up with. While I'm asking them, if people have questions they want to put into the text box, the chat box, or raise their hand, we'll get to those also.

I'm curious if you could tell us about the QR codes and how you plan to use those in your instruction.[ Pause ]

Houck: Okay. Can you hear me?

Myhill: Yes, go ahead.

Houck: Right now, we have some of the Nexus tablets at the kindergarten level and we have e-books. So what one of the schools has done, and this is going to be one of my projects in January, is to take the actual link for our e-books that we have. Right now, they have to have a login and the kindergartner cannot sit there and log in and remember all the steps to do that, so we've found a way to take the actual links, we have to avoid breaking copyright buy your own version of it for your school. But, we will take the actual link for the school and create a QR code from

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that and the student will then have the book jacket on one side, the QR code on the opposite side and use their tablet and scan it and it will bring up the e-book allowing them to bypass the sign in. So that's the first way.

The second way is to create trailers or book summaries of book reports that go with the book, so that you can put a QR code on the actual book. And if they are at one-to-one next year, they could walk up to a book, scan the QR code and hear some type of summary. I hear money in that if we can pitch that to someone might SolveEd or one of the other companies that do books. They could just include that already when you purchase the book on the back.

Myhill: Those are great examples. Getting students involved in writing those book reviews, which the publishing companies also like to see, would be a great opportunity for students.

I wonder if you could also address, just briefly, Linda, you mentioned the benefits of having a wide variety of resources in the library, or ways to access materials. Such as through text, through audio, through video. How do you balance the needs to have those types of resources in, in multiple media like that with your overall needs to develop your library collection?

Houck: Well, what's nice is that there are five elementary libraries so we can split and share a lot of different resources. That's wonderful. For our library, I look at usage and do reports like Kendra was talking about earlier. You can see how many hard-back books are going out, how much use of the e-books you're getting. We have the playaways logged. So I just run reports and take a look. Now for our library, we have a lot of e-book usage and a lot of books on playaways. I have a fair number of those. I don't have as many books on CD and books on tape as I used to, because of course, with the times, it’s moved away from that. I'm competing with movies and Minecraft and other kinds of digital things that capture student's attention. I'm really surprised that the nooks are not a big hit here. They'd rather have the hard copy in their hand. They'd rather do the e-book, well, maybe they wouldn't rather do it, but if they can take a library material out, they have ten books out – I do set a limit - or they have an overdue, they owe a fine or something like that and they can't, they will sit and do the e-book, but we always do a lesson on where it is too. The e-books have more usage, I think because we purchased some that the classroom teachers use a lot and therefore, they show it as a class and usually come to the library or even access it from home and reread what they've seen. So, it's tough, you know, how do you balance? But you just try to keep up by running reports and listening to the needs of your teachers and your students, plus pressing forward with renewed technologies and what's out there. You do a spattering, see how it goes. If I find them borrowing a lot of anything in particular from one or the other elementary libraries, then I think, “Oh, I better get more of those.”

Myhill: Okay, thank you very much.

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Do we have any questions from our other panelists or comments for Linda? Or if folks have questions or comments from the audience, please type those in or raise your hand. [ Pause ] Go ahead, Kendra.

Allen: In response to some of the questions that I'm seeing in the chat room, what I'm doing to answer about the books in different formats is that North Carolina has a North Carolina Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. You can set up an institution account with that library. So, for a school, for me, I have an institution account and to set it up though, I had to have a student that met their qualifications and I had to do a little bit of paperwork for it, and it was a more detailed process. But once you did the paperwork and you set up that institution account with the North Carolina Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, they sent me the players, and the digital players for their audio books. So I was able to request specific materials. I have a student that needed that level of audio books. Her cognitive level was lower than the materials I had in my audio book collection here at the middle school. So, I was able to request elementary school level audio books through the state library and they would send them directly to me at school and I could return them in the mail and it's all free of charge.That student is now in eighth grade and she's actually started this year saying "I don't need that stuff anymore". And when I notified the library, the state library of that, I said the student requested not to have the material sent to us anymore, she's moved on, she's not interested, she's reading other things. Do we need to close her account or what happens? Do I need to return the players? And they said, no, keep the players in case you have another student who qualifies and we'll just pick back up on sending materials when you're ready.

Myhill: Thank you, Kendra, that's very useful information to have.

As you mentioned, we have a number of other comments and questions come in from a variety of folks talking about other resources. The questions may be looking for feedback as to how effective these things are or just whether or not people have awareness. So perhaps Linda, you might have a few comments here, for example, we have Karen mentioning book share, which is a very popular resource, learning ally and APH.org for audio, braille and large print visual books. And we have Stella mentioning the National Library Service talking books and Bard mobile apps. Linda, do you have any experience or comments about those?

Houck: I am familiar with some of those. And I do know on our LIB guide pages we try to break it down according to the level of what's more applicable to send students to, you know, a particular grade level. But we do have overall information, such as ways to connect to those resources or resources like that, that we take a look at mostly for people to access at home, you know, more than in school. In school we try to provide it and maybe a classroom teacher might use one or the other in the center, but those connections for different types of digital books and places to get

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the digital books- I wasn't aware of the braille one- are out there, already linked off an LIB guide page. Whether it's high school-appropriate or middle school- appropriate or district-appropriate or elementary-appropriate. They're great.

Myhill: Okay, Thanks, Linda.

I'd like to move ahead and get on to our next panelist. I want to introduce you to Sean Fallon. He's been the Library Media Specialist for the Upper Deerfield School District in Southern New Jersey since September of 2013. Prior to going to Upper Deerfield he served as a library media specialist for the Bridgeton Public Schools for ten years. Previously Shaun worked in the journalism and public relations field for ten years before going into education.

Welcome, Sean and please go ahead.

Fallon: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for introducing me, William.

A little about my background as William alluded. I come from a unique perspective because I've been in two school districts in the past two years and there are a lot of similarities, and a lot of differences. The school district that I am currently in right now, is in a neighboring town from where I was in Bridgeton. Bridgeton was a city, where this is more of a township, suburb, type of thing. I'm in Upper Deerfield Township, actually where I live, so I have the luxury of teaching my own children.

There are two schools in my district. My main school is the Seabrook School, which is a Pre-K to third grade that has about 475 students. The second school is the original school, the Elizabeth Moore School, which has about 210 students in grades four and five. There’s a self-contained class there. There's a self-contained class in this building and the middle school, which I do not work in directly, but since I'm the only media specialist in the district, I provide counsel and oversee some things on it.

The middle school has roughly 310 students or so. Cumberland County in Southern New Jersey, for those who may not know, is the poorest county in the state. We're right between Philadelphia and the Jersey Shore. It used to be a big glass manufacturing area, but that's long gone away. We draw from a lot of migrant workers, our student body is very diverse. That's something we have to take into consideration when we run a library and try to put together a library program. That includes accessibility, because while other districts might have more money available to do that, some, unfortunately, do not. That’s the way things are. You really have to consider that when you determine accessibility. The biggest issue I want to look into, especially the biggest consideration, am I providing the students the least restrictive environment?

Now, normally we think of that term when it comes to mainstreaming Special Ed students, into a regular ed classroom and inclusionary stuff and the like, but that

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also works in the library. You have to make it least restrictive. Are you holding your children back? Are there any impediments that are preventing students from getting what they want or what they need? And that's going to be something that's very essential. And along those lines, is it providing the most productive environment? If you're hindering somebody in that class, then somebody else isn't going to have the opportunity to get what they need or get the most out of what they need. There has to be some productivity out of that. And hopefully that's something that as a librarian and media specialist you want to be able to provide that. You want to be able to widen that, in terms of materials, in terms of information, in terms of basic supplies. So it kind of leads to, how do we implement that? Differentiated instruction, obviously is a key factor.

Referring back to my ten years previously, I was in a more urban district in New Jersey, it was considered a [indiscernible] district. Because it doesn't have much of a tax base, the state, in order to provide adequate funding, gave those districts more money to provide them services. They were able to provide things like essential equipment, as I alluded to about technology and the question I posed regarding the parks, but those are issues that the money came from the state where in other districts, it doesn’t come that way. It might come from the taxpayer, it may come from other outside sources that doesn't provide it. But again, is it going to be the most productive environment that's going to be involved with that?

Highly differentiated instruction, again. You want to provide your students with options. You want to provide them something a menu of sorts, even. Teaching a K-3 curriculum with grades three, four, and five, you see a lot of different students, you see a lot of different personalities. In a transient district, you see a lot of students that you might see them now, and then they might leave, and you might see them a year from now. Depending on the family going back to Mexico or just the family being transient and may just move from district to district to district. You have to keep that in mind as well. Understanding what kids like, understanding what teachers like, understanding what the students and parents like. You have to find out all about that.

One of the neat things about being someone who actually lives in the school district that I teach in, I see these people out and about. You get a sense of who they are, and what they do, you see them on the soccer field, or in church or whatever, you get a sense for that. That's actually something that carries into, for me, as I put together my collection, as I plan out how my library's going to be. And also, you have to work in a lesson that fits with the students and their abilities and their reading levels too. As a librarian, I want to make the library exciting, I don't want the kids to dread library. That's one of the selling points you want to make as you come in here. As a teacher, you have to do, classroom teacher, I'm going to do it, arts teacher, so forth. But, especially if you're dealing with students that have certain disabilities that might be turned off, you have to be able to sell that.

I'll give you a case in point, this morning, my first class was kindergarten. I have

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two autistic children. As Kendra alluded earlier, we don't have that type of training. We're not trade in Special Ed, per se. We might have some background, but dealing with autistic children, you have to adapt real fast. And that's something that, as we discussed, that's something you're going to have to deal with. That kind of leads into new roles that the school community plays. You can divide the school community into a couple different factors. You're talking about the students themselves, you're talking about their parents, you're talking about your fellow teachers and you're talking about administration, and that's something that everybody has to be on board with. That is essential. I'm not a big fan of the word proactive, but it's essential here. Being proactive and being able to anticipate the needs, now, we have a luxury with that. We have a Pre-K program, what I don't see, as of now, that might change for next year. But, I see these kids as preschoolers, and I can actually find out before they get into kindergarten, some of their weaknesses, some of their strengths, some of their abilities and things they might have issues with physically or mentally or whatever that allows me to get a step ahead of that. If you could anticipate something like that as an educator or librarian, that's going to be half the battle there.

What are patrons going to need? How are they going to work with you to achieve that? Where does the administration come into this? I think it's very essential that you have an administrator or administrators that are on board with that. I'm in a unique situation where the superintendent is also one of the principals in another building. He works close enough with the other two principals where you tell one of them something, the other two will know very quickly. Lines of communication need to be really established when we talk about working within the community and I think communication, reverting back to my background as a public relations person, is essential. Communicators within the administration so you let them know what your needs are to help make your library run a lot smoother - that's going to be very essential.

As per anything innovative, give the students more of a hand in this. Give them a say in certain things. Get them included. I'll give you a case in point. This year my schedule has changed, because New Jersey is still doing the park which means the kids will have to be up on their technology. Now I'm not seeing the fourth graders on a regular basis, but I'm in there when I'm over that building, in my absence, the self-contained class has become my eyes, my ears, and my helpers. So the students in the self-contained class, and there are different issues involved with each student, have become my helpers and will actually do book check-outs and help assist putting books back on the shelf. They are becoming more of a stakeholder in the library. I think that's also essential. If a student is a stakeholder, in anything, you see it in the classroom, you see it even in your households, that's going to be something that will help make it more enjoyable, for lack of a better word, that they can get out of this whole library experience.

Other ones, again, Kendra touched on a lot of these when she spoke earlier, in terms of a lot of Universal Design, trying to integrate more technology, having the kids be able to use, to blend the library, the books, and how to access the books

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and to do more with the technology part. Obviously that's, in these workshops and things, it's mind blowing to see what technology is. You think you're pretty savvy and you go to one of these things and there's six or seven different new programs almost on a monthly basis, you almost feel like you're playing catch-up in that regard. That's one of the things you have to integrate and allow kids to be a shareholder in that. You probably learn more of technology from the students than anybody else these days.

That's pretty much what I have in terms of this. If something that's essential that, as an educator, as a librarian, you know, we see everybody. You know, classroom teachers, they have their kids. And depending on the class size, our class size around here is about 21, 22. It's a little higher, in the upper grades, as is the case with everyone else, these kindergarten class sizes are solid. Five classes with about 23 each. You have to take it very serious, not serious, but you have to really make sure you know what the kids want and they need and make it accessible for them as well.

Myhill: Well, thank you Sean, if that's where you'd like to stop for now, that's fine. That gives us some time to take some questions or comments from our other panelists or from people in the audience.[ Long pause ]

Let me turn back to Kendra and Linda. Do you have anything you could add on or would like to add on to what Sean has shared?

Allen: I think that, agreeing with Sean, that taking the role of stakeholder is very important. There's a level of independence and ability that you empower that child to have a connection to the media center, that's a positive connection. I have many students that, it's interesting, we have a dynamic where I have students who struggle with reading and who therefore, aren't huge fans of our sustained silent reading time that is built into our schedule every day. They, instead, try to "escape" to the media center during SSR. Which is interesting because, you're trying to escape reading by going to a library, But, I think part of it is that their feeling of ownership in the room and their level of comfort in the space and with you speaks to the fact that is a positive space, even if the act of reading is challenging. So it's not necessarily a negative association, there can be a positive association with your space and your program, even if reading is an obstacle and is something that they're trying to avoid.

Myhill: Thank you, Kendra. In your follow-up there, I heard a piece that may only be tangential, or not. That is about the matter of self-advocacy. When it comes to young people with disabilities, one of the things that our research shows is that they tend to graduate from high school with fewer abilities for advocating for themselves than their peers who have disabilities, and yet, because they're changing from a system where they're getting a lot of supports under the IDEA or even under the Rehabilitation Act, and they're going out into the work world or Higher Education and they no longer have those types of direct supports, that the

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need for self-advocacy even greater. I'm wondering if our panelists have any thoughts on that and where that need or addressing that need fits in with library programs and services.

Houck: I'd like to comment. I agree with you, with that, and from what I've seen from the people that graduated and gone on, I know at the elementary level the problem is trying to get all students to come into the library and then continue on, they won’t come sometimes. So we take a step-by-step approach to get them into the library. Whether it's just coming and saying hi, coming and getting a book, until they're with their peer group and trying to come with their class. Usually we get that far because we have some that are nonverbal and that are using a device to speak. So the kids get used to it and it becomes natural for them.

Building on those small steps in the library, taking it out, then, throughout the building, even at the elementary level, I think helps. Since they started really working on that and then I've seen it move to the middle school and trying to pull off not being coddled and babied as much and trying to get them to advocate. Whether they want a library book or whatever, a library is a good place to start because you can talk about something that is interesting and get them to say what they need. And that’s the whole thing. Getting them to say what they need and having people have an understanding that they may need help with that. And then going on to high school where sometimes they have a nice peer group or clique of friends that helps bring out that advocacy and get them involved with what they're interested in, whether it be art or music or plays or things that they can do - Special Olympics. Really, if we can get them to be able to advocate, way back, at this level, kindergarten, first grade and build upon that, I think it will strengthen their ability to do so when they graduate and go out.

Keep reminding them. I have a friend whose son has some disabilities, and I remind him that now you’re 20. And I keep reminding him you have to advocate for yourself. You have a right still to do this and to have some accommodations. And you need to say “hey I need some help with this.” And he has made strides in that. He’s been encouraged because the asking for help has been received well.

Myhill: Thank you very much, Linda.Are there any other comments about that or about other things? We certainly have some time for that.

Allen: I agree with Linda, William, with self-advocacy, getting students to ask questions or identify needs or points of needing assistance. When that does happen, when a question is asked, when a need is identified and help is requested, that we respond mindfully with positive reinforcement, that is the appropriate action, it's not that you're interrupting me, you know, or what I was doing. If you need help, I can address your need. If it's an appropriate time to be asking those questions or voicing needs, we're responding positively to try and reinforce that this is what you need to be doing as well.

Myhill: Thank you, Kendra.

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Do we have any other comments? Or questions to be added?

Fallon: I think a lot of it does fall upon us as librarians, but also as educators where we have to sell it, especially at the lower level. I'll use me as an example, as a child, I remember going to the library all the time with my mother and my father. Then that carried over into high school and into college and so forth. Nowadays, we don't see that. That's something as a librarian we have to kind of sell. I always think of it as the whole Tom Sawyer thing. He basically conned everybody into painting the fence and he was collecting all these things. He was selling it as a unique opportunity and that's what we need to do in terms of promoting the library as something that's accessible for all, that's valuable to all, we have to be able to do that. I try to promote that in my building, in my place. Ironically, I'm probably one of the more popular ones because I have an elf on the shelf. Everyone wants to know where my elf is today. The foot traffic I get just from that - that includes all students, not just certain ones, but pretty much all. That's one of the things we also need to do. We need to become more of a salesperson when it comes to this stuff.

Myhill: Great, very good points, Sean. I was wondering if each of you could think for a moment about, just this one question and give us your perspective. If you reflect upon what the three most common barriers to inclusion in the school library are, think about what those most common things happen to be and how you've addressed those things. I’ll give you a few seconds to work that one out, and I'll ask Linda first - the three most common barriers to accessibility in the library setting and how you addressed those –

Linda?

Houck: Making sure that I'm aware of all of the IEPs, all of 504s, all of the students who are at-risk. I was on the data team for the last couple years and we've taken a look at some of the scores that we've run on the different testing within the building and within the state and just students that are at-risk because we had RTI. That was really helpful, to let me know and be aware of what kind of accommodations were being made already and what kind of accommodations would be useful for me to provide in the library. Either with materials and trying to direct students to books at their proper level because if they're not verbal and they're not coming in, do they need a book that is a book they can open with their hand, do they need a book on tape? The younger kids sometimes came in with someone, but that's the point where, I think Asperger's students, or students who can't communicate, but really sometimes need some help in getting to what they really want. That was helpful. So just being aware of the different needs of the students that are in the building. And my schedule allowed for it and I certainly took the time, but some schedules don't allow for that.

I’d say also the view of the teachers, the classroom teacher and the teachers that are in the resource room and their expectations of what they feel you should be doing with their students and also what activities are best to be doing and what

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resources are best. They have to help with that selection. I know the views of our different teachers have changed over time and my background is not Special Ed like Sean pointed out and Kendra did. We don't always know a ton about anything in particular, but they were not always quick to be able to collaborate either. I guess it comes back to a time to collaborate and communicate effectively because they are writing IEPs, they are going to IEPs. We had different processes. People were complaining and they had to go through some of those processes.

Knowing the levels, also time and views of the people you are trying to collaborate with. Having the finances too, to be able to provide for the needs of all students. I know some things are required by law and are written into the IEP and the district has to provide for it and they do. But, if it's just for the one student, and then they're singled out, instead of made to feel like they fit in. And that's where the iPod situation and iPad situation came in and the library usage here was that it was hard to incorporate those students when they stood out with a sore thumb. “Oh, he can't talk,” that's what other kids are thinking, because he has the sound board. When we're all using the sound board down to the point where it could be apps on an iPad and now the other students are using iPad and those students are using it to communicate, can also use it to participate and use the apps that they're using to do library stuff. So having the money to provide different formats and technologies is a barrier.

Myhill: Thank you, Linda, really good comments. Not being aware of student particular needs, not being aware of IEPs, 504s, that's an easily overcome-able barrier. It’s an obligation of a librarian as a member of the school community to be aware of those things. It’s not necessarily the case that librarians will request that information or have that information provided to them. Then the money issue is an interesting one and I really appreciate your comments that types of assistive technologies that could be too expensive for many to purchase in the past. Many things, especially with regards to communications, are now available to us on tablets and through apps at a much more affordable rate than ever before. So that's just a wonderful development that we are beginning to experience.

Okay, we are down to just a few minutes left. I'm going to ask Sean if you could give us one or two of your top three barriers and ways you would perhaps address those.

Fallon: Well, obviously one is space. Libraries, depending on where you are is an issue, being able to have it accessible. As a reference point, in my former position, I had to share facilities at any given time, with a reading tutor reading in one section, and algebra in another corner and that took away accessibility. So, space is very essential. If you want to be able to have maximum space and maximum area so everybody can access the materials, they can, those are considerations. Unfortunately because of the school populations growing more than what was anticipated with the schools, you almost have to plan in a certain way to allow that. Because you know, more students sitting at the tables, how do you want to accommodate that? I'm running into that now. I have 24 seats, six tables, four to a

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table, and I have two classes of 26 kids. I have two kids who have to find homes. I have them in various different spots. Space is a huge issue. Especially if you're at a school where the population has definitely out grown the size of it.

To kind of follow-up on Linda's point about cost, that's a given for everybody. That's always going to be an issue, in terms of making sure that everything is accessible for everybody, then that's going to be essential. So space and money would be my two big issues.

Myhill: Thank you very much, Sean and turning to you, Kendra.

Allen: Sure, very briefly, I think part of the challenges are stereotypes on two different directions. Some individuals, teachers, teacher assistants, other adult stakeholders in the building, have a perception of, or students who have been told what the perception should be, of the library media center, that it's supposed to be of a certain noise level or there are certain behavior protocols that are acceptable in your space. When you have students who don't necessarily fit in terms of how they function and how they vocalize into those stereotypes per se, there's a perception, perhaps that they don't belong, that they aren't welcome, that if they yell out or have any kind of vocalizations or noises or anything that may be perceived as distracting behavior, but which is normal for that student and perfectly acceptable, there may be some perception that there's going to be someone upset about it or it's not going to be acceptable. For me when something happens, I just let it go. I'm not reacting in a negative way. I look at it and go "that's what that student does, okay great." And we keep moving and the activity continues. So I try to set the example that I'm okay with it. This is acceptable for that student, and if that’s acceptable for that student then that’s acceptable in our space.

And then also, our stereotypes that perhaps we hold up students and have stereotypes of certain disabilities and disorders and trying to move past those stereotypes that we, as adults, might hold about the individuals that we're working with and trying to push anything that we may have previously believed or thought to be true to the side and see the individual and not the disability for that very reason.

Myhill: Well, thank you, all three of you for being thrown a question that I didn't necessarily give you any warning about. This has been a really wonderful webinar today and as we draw towards the end, I just want to thank everybody, participants and panelists for your time.

This webinar has been digitally recorded for archiving. We will be developing a complete accessible transcript of this webinar along with full audio and video recordings that can be accessed individually. They'll be available from the Project Enable website at no cost in the month ahead.

We also will be following up with all of our participants to give them that information when it becomes available. And just a general reminder, this is part

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one of a two-part series. We will be having a second webinar on these types of issues and some additional ones facing our school librarians in the spring. Dates yet to be determined.

That's all from us today, thank you very much panelists for your time. Wishing everybody a wonderful holiday season.

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