Project ENABLE Webinar Transcript: K-12 School Librarian

Part 2: Awareness, Collaboration, and School-wide Buy-in of Inclusive Practices May 1, 2015 Myhill: Good afternoon. Welcome to Project ENABLE’s two-part webinar series,

supporting K through 12 school librarians to provide inclusive programs and services for students with disabilities. Today’s session, “Awareness, Collaboration, and School-wide Buy-in of Inclusive Practices”, is the second webinar of this series. My name is William Myhill, I am co-principal investigator of project ENABLE and the director of legal research and writing for the Burton Blatt Institute. I will be facilitating today’s webinar.

Project ENABLE, which stands for Expanding Nondiscriminatory Access by

Librarians Everywhere, is a collaborative project of Syracuse University’s Center for Digital Literacy and the Burton Blatt Institute. Project ENABLE provides free, foundational training designed specifically for K through 12 school, public, and academic librarians worldwide to help them gain the knowledge and skills needed to create inclusive and accessible library services and programs that meet the need of all students. Before we get started I want to share some information and answer some of the frequently-asked questions. Today’s webinar is being conducted using 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. This session also is being captioned. To turn on captioning, please select the CC icon in the upper toolbar to open a separate window with captioning.

Today’s session is also being recorded and archived for future use. A link to the

recording and presentation will be posted on the Burton Blatt Institute website through the “Our Projects Page”. Please share this freely with colleagues who may have missed the opportunity to participate in today’s session.

I will provide the URL for that page shortly.

http://bbi.syr.edu/news_events/news/2015/04/ProjectENABLE_webinars_050115.html

Also, all participants' microphones and phone lines are muted. If you have a question please type it in the chat area. At this time we are advising you to close all other applications you may be running on your computer because they may interfere with your successful experience.

If your computer stays idle for too long, it may shut down and go to sleep. So we suggest you periodically tap the space bar just to let the webinar system know that you are still there. Our presenters today are Amy Rusk, Kay Hones, and Demetria Graham. Amy Rusk is the Tucson Unified School District's coordinating librarian for more than 70 school libraries and has been a teacher librarian for 20 years at the Tucson High Magnet School. Kay Hones has almost 30 years of experience as a teacher librarian in the San Francisco Unified School District. Demetria Graham is a technology support and training coordinator for the Glendale Union High School District in Glendale, Arizona, and previously was the media center director at Thunderbird High School.

So we'll get started with our webinar. And I will now turn it over to Amy Rusk. We'll take about 15 minutes for each of our presenters, we will certainly entertain questions if you put them in the text box and we will allow time both during the presentation and after presentations for questions and answering. Amy? Over to you. Rusk: Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Amy Rusk, and I'm the lead librarian at a large urban high school in Tucson, Arizona as well as the de facto coordinating librarian for the Tucson Unified school district, which means that I travel to 72 of 84 libraries that are run halftime by library assistants alone. And I coach the library assistants in any way I can. Project ENABLE has positively impacted my practice in both arenas and through collaboration I've been able to make some big and small changes to increase access for all students. Slide 2. As part of my traveling job, I require an intake form from each library assistant before I visit their library that asks a series of questions. One of which is whether they are familiar with Project ENABLE. This encourages them to visit the website which is a jumping off place for discussion when we meet face to face. Often the assistant and I can do some simple things to make their library more accessible, like moving furniture to increase walkway space for wheel chairs or moving books off the lowest and highest shelves, as well as accessing the school's online data to see the makeup of the student body, how many students are in the exceptional education classes, and most importantly, whether the library is addressing all students. In a number of cases, we've simply relocated the picture book collections to a central area where they are more readily accessible.

I also send library assistants a PowerPoint from the professional development sessions that my Project ENABLE team from Tucson High presented to the Tucson High faculty that explains the different types of disabilities our students have and some basic accommodations. The last bullet on this screen asks if the assistant has consulted the website, disabilityinkidlit. The site encourages its audience, in this case library staff, to consider whether the treatment of characters with disabilities in literature that they are buying or promoting is fair and accurate. Slide 3. Slide 3 is a continuation of the form. The first two bullets are the library and its resources accessible to students with disabilities and then please explain. Again, facilitates our discussion when I visit a site. Many times assistants tell me that they had not considered doing anything specific to serve exceptional education students until they read the form. Slide four. Approximately 500 of Tucson High's 3200 students receive exceptional education services. Since attending Project ENABLE, I have been working much more closely with the Tucson High exceptional education teachers to increase their use of the library. Project ENABLE really inspired me to reach out and find out how the library could better serve our students with disabilities. Some of the positive steps I've taken have been developing a supplemental book collection that aligns with exceptional education curriculum, writing a grant to get Kindles for use by all students that they've been most helpful for students with autism. And planning collaboratively with exceptional education teachers on research projects, taking into consideration their students' needs and levels. So on that note, I wanted to talk about a couple specific collaborations I was involved in this year. Slide five. The first is a research project with a co-op American history class. A co-op class is one in which exceptional education students are mainstreamed into a general education class and the class is taught collaboratively by an exceptional education teacher and general education teacher. And as you can see the three of us met as a team and divided up the responsibilities of the lesson, taking into consideration students' 504 and individualized education plans, or IEP plans. I liked this lesson because it met the needs of all students and no one was singled out because of his or her abilities. I also love the fact that there is an audio feature associated with the online databases, which all students like, and which is critical for students who have difficulty reading.

Finally, the final projects, because students were allowed to choose the format also played to students' strengths. Slide six. This slide is part of the collaborative planning process. We look at Mojave, the district's student data database system, to make sure that we are aware of each student's disability so that we can then plan lessons accordingly. Sometimes this is the first time that the general education teacher has looked at this form or looked on Mojave for the disabilities. The teachers are so busy and unfortunately, the lion's share of the responsibility for students with disabilities is placed on the exceptional education teacher. Slide 7. Slide 7 is a continuation of the planning process. Our students with disabilities either have an IEP plan or a 504 plan, which we consider in the planning process. I've included this slide because it's also one of the handouts that I give to assistants when I visit their sites. Slide 8. I'm getting back to the collaborative lesson and wanted to give an example of one of the activities that we do that help kids get ready for the research. I like this Topic Treasure Hunt because it gives students access to a wide variety of books at different levels under each category, so all students are served equitably. And slide 9. Finally, this is an overview or part of a lesson I worked on with a general education teacher to raise awareness of disabilities among his general education students, who were reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, in which the main character struggles with autism. Students seemed to learn a lot from this lesson and were able to dispel some of their outdated and stereotypical information that they had going into the project. And finally, slide 10, this is my contact info, and I think that we'll be answering questions later. So thank you for listening. Myhill: Thank you, Amy. If we can, I would like to go ahead and entertain any questions that might have already come up. I certainly might have a few. So let me just kind of ask you, I really enjoyed the materials you shared, and one thing is I do hope that you can provide copies of these materials to us. We would like to include them with the archive so that people attending could actually access and make use or modify some of your materials if that's alright with you. Rusk: That would be great, sure. Myhill: Alright. Fantastic! You’ve clearly done a lot to try to bring on board collaboration from other members of the school faculty. And I’m wondering if there are sort of any particular gems or stories you might share as to where you’ve had particular successes in collaboration or if there’s anything that you would -- you learned that you would like us not to try and repeat.

Rusk: Oh, that's -- yes, I can probably think of some of those. I think what comes to mind is just the importance of -- that the one-on-one approach, how useful it is--it has been to visit one library at a time and work with a library assistant and then the collaborative process. We did do professional development for the Tucson High faculty, but that was a much bigger group, and think the one-on-one is very positive, it's less threatening. Teachers like to think of themselves as conscientious and really knowing everything, and so it's nice when you can work with a teacher in a small group with maybe--like we did in the threesome or just one-on-one with another assistant. I think that's a very positive way to effect change. Myhill: Great, thank you. You've provided several examples of things that classroom teachers need to know more about and how they can be involved in the process. You've talked also about how school librarians need more experience and exposure to disability issues and awareness. Are there particular things, Amy, you'd say that the librarians you work with, or the librarians assistants, are particularly in need of when it comes to effectively working with students with disabilities? Rusk: I think--I really think more training, I think spending time on the Project ENABLE website. I think that would be the best thing. And, I mean, more awareness. I think the getting on the school’s database and really understanding the specific disabilities of each of our students I think is very important because that—it just seems that that’s—that’s not anything that we are—that we necessarily have to do in our jobs, and I think that needs to change. So…I hope that answers the question. Myhill: Well, I think that's really helpful. One more, I'll stop bombarding you with questions, but I like the way in the lesson planning that you have demonstrated the way you were considering issues of students' IEPs. I'm wondering how you're finding what level of awareness and utilization the school librarians and library assistants typically have of IEPs or 504 plans. Rusk: I really don't think that that's generally something that they do have. And I think that that's something that Project ENABLE is helping us change. I think it really opens people's eyes to, wow, I could do this lesson differently. I can present different materials. Unfortunately, I don't think that that’s standard practice now, but I do think that that's something that--that can be changed with exposure to—to this program and to just more collaboration. Myhill: Okay, thank you so much, Amy.

Does anybody else have any comments or questions that they would like to add at this time? Ellen Gordon typed in that, “I think this is very interesting that many assistants did not actively think about inclusion until looking at your survey, Amy.” Rusk: And I think it's interesting too. I think that there is—it has to do with different school districts and how -- approach in the school, whether there is an emphasis on mainstreaming and an emphasis of self-contained classrooms. And again, I think that that -- it changes just one situation at a time or through leadership. But it is -- again, it is always surprising. It's just always -- it is always surprising. Especially those of us who are in education feel like we should be more aware. Myhill: Alright. I would like to just toss the ball in the direction of Kay and Demetria for a moment. If there is anything you'd like to add? If there is something that you've experienced in the work you do that parallels with what Amy has done that you could share with us? Hones: This is Kay. In our district there's much more of a push for students being included in the classrooms, and I've had a principal in the past that when the teacher wasn't available I was the teacher that went to the IEPs, and I thought that was a very positive -- it really helped me learn more about both the students and the parents and the types of issues that they were facing. I do have background in special ed, I have worked with special ed populations before I was in the library program, so I think that helps too. But I do think that just more awareness and sometimes it's -- I just loved Amy's intake form. And thank you, Amy. I just think there are so many things that once you think about it, you'll do it, but it's just a matter of bringing that awareness. Thank you. Myhill: Thank, Kay. Rusk: Thank you. Graham: I agree with what Kay said. This is Demetria. I think also that typically it's not intentional overlooking of students and, again, bringing awareness to the situation is often the key for helping ease any difficulties that present themselves. Personally, when I was in the library and I noticed a student struggling or they appeared to be different in behaviors perhaps, I would often ask questions and typically what I found was a wealth of knowledge from our special ed educators and then I was able to approach the student in a more deliberate fashion. And I think that helped me serve their needs much better when I was informed. Thank you.

Myhill: Thank you both Kay and Demetria, for your comments there. Alright. Yes, and Ellen has added to her comments, “But once you prompted them it sounds as though they were willing and eager to make accommodations as needed.” Rusk: And I think that that’s—I think that’s true, I think everybody wants to do the right thing, absolutely. Myhill: Okay. Well, fantastic. We’ll take this as an opportunity now to transition to Kay. Kay Hones. And please take it from there, Kay. Hones: Hi, I'm Kay Hones, calling from sunny California. And thank you for letting me participate. Amy, I want you to do my slides because I don't have any, I'm sorry. Yours were wonderful! My background is that I have worked in San Francisco Unified, and I had the opportunity to build from scratch four different libraries; one at a middle school and three at high school level. And so what I thought about when I thought about this presentation was, what are the different things that I had to think about in starting from scratch with a library? And I came up with five different areas. I wanted to talk a little bit about first of being proactive, not reactive. And I really want to focus on universal design for learning. The first area is visual. And I know we've heard a lot about the signage and the graphics, but using a font that's accessible, like Ariel, large point, bold, and bilingual if possible, if that's needed with your populations. And then developmentally appropriate web links. So on the library homepage I will put things that have for the younger children the Dr. Seuss Seussville story maker, instant poetry, poetry splatter. These are all links that all of the children can access and use successfully. For the youngest children, ABC Starfall. And all of them have captions if you need them. So those are the things for the visual area. And then for the displays to feature student work, to feature diversity of mobility and cultures in each display -- I put displays up every month, but I particularly like to include student work as much as possible. And then the second area is auditory. So having audio books, which nowadays because they usually have the CD players, I'm using grant money to get that. But I have found, with both students in special ed and the bilingual students, that the audio books are really a valuable resource for them. Also, websites that have book collections that have the read aloud option are really wonderful. And then you can get subscriptions too if you have lots of

money, like Tumbleweed, we don't always have that money. The other area of audio is like having quiet spaces. And I think the thing is, I love the idea of the maker spaces and a lot of activities going on, but also to include quieter areas and not have things be too busy in certain areas, not visually busy or not, you know, a lot of clustering around certain areas that -- so there's that quiet space for the students that need that. And I find that that's with the -- I'm with high school kids now, and some of them come in and they want to sit back in the corner quietly, which sometimes surprises me. And sometimes they want to sit with just one friend and do -- play chess or play Monopoly, but to have that quiet space. The third area is the physical, and I think Project ENABLE has a lot of great resources about this. To think, use ability, and to focus on access rather than the rules is what I try to think of. And just real briefly, of course the room. For--one of the schools I work at is Hilltop Pregnant Minors School, so not only to have the aisle space for mobility and wheelchairs and that sort of thing, but the kids with the baby carriages to get through too is something I've had to this think about. The circulation desk, the level of the circulation desk so it's accessible. And different kinds of seating. I'm left-handed, I don't know how many times I've been to district meetings and there wasn't a place for me to write with my left hand. So all of those things have to be taken into consideration. And then the clear traffic flow. And this is sometimes a really difficult when you start out with a space that's already in place from 1921 or whenever, but as much as possible clear areas so there's a good traffic flow from getting around it to the shelving, getting to the tables, getting out the door. And really thinking about shelving that's too high or too low. I've asked the kids at one school, because we got a grant with a lot of books and I said should I put them up higher or should I put them down lower? All these youngsters are taller than I am so they all said put them on the high shelf. Well, one of the ideas I heard was get one of those –little, like a little clipper thing and the student can reach up and pull down the book if they needed to. But again, really think through who the students are that you have and what would be most accessible for them. And I think the lower shelf sometimes tend to be a little less accessible or a little less used also. Let’s see. Okay. And then have a variety of seating. So you can sit with a partner, you can sit with a small group, you have individual seating. And again, the quiet space and also just eye contact. And that kind of goes with the flow of the room, that, you know, I have the first--second library that I built at a high school I made sure all of the shelving that was--there was shelving around

the wall space but then the other shelving that I could see over it. I had eye contact with everyone, whether they wanted it or not. The next area is the emotional area. And I think here it's something that, I think Amy touched on, is to put the person first instead of the ability. And, for instance, eyeglasses, a lot of people, including me, wear eyeglasses, and it's considered normal. So all different abilities should be as accessible. To have developmentally appropriate books and media. And I do a lot of research looking at things that are developmentally appropriate for the age group that I'm working with, but accessible. So the high-low readers is an example. Again, the audio books is another example. So students can enjoy books that are written for their age level and for their interest level but that are accessible to them. I work at -- one of the schools I work at is the students that are 7th through 12th grade coming right out of our juvenile hall and this is like the transition school, and the hope is then they will go on to a regular school in--after a semester or two. And an incredible amount of number of those young people are way below grade level in reading. About 78% of them have some special ed IEP or some designation. And yet, you know, they're all interested in sports and cars and all the kind of things that every other middle school and high school student is interested in. So it's just a challenge to find the variety of materials that will encourage them to read about then encourage them to read more, and I also believe the more you read the better and the more you learn. So I think that's one of the biggest things in terms of supporting students emotionally is having the materials that really -- they're interested in and yet that are accessible to them. Also, I think age-appropriate decorations. Teenagers do not like some of the adorable decorations that you can get from some of the companies. But I like to put a lot of student work up. Have it labeled, have it—and I ask them, you know, after we've done something, if I can keep it for next year to put up. And most of the time they're glad to let me keep it. So I start to have a set of materials that I can put up for poetry month or put up for African American history month there. Things that students have done in the past. So I've had students in the past that -- one particular student comes to mind, every time he came in he wanted the train book, the same train book. So what I tried to do is I talked with the teachers and I talked to his folks and I said, well, let's find some other train books. And so we gradually, we did more train books and then we gradually moved into books that had things to do with--about the history of trains and that sort of thing. So we tried to broaden his interest level.

And I think that's something -- it's very individual with students, but it's something that -- it's so valuable when you see them really moving up into, you know, more advanced kinds of things, it is still building on their interests. I really have a thing about things being too visually busy. And I think this impacts on the emotions a lot and some of the classrooms make me feel a little jumpy, because they have so much stuff in them. And I think one amazing poster, or one amazing bulletin board with student work on it is enough sometimes in the library because it can get kind of overwhelming for certain students, just too much going on and they just -- it's just too much for them to handle. And again, using things on the Court School I have bean bags, they are the best thing I could have gotten for that school. The kids come in and they want to plop down on the bean bags and find a book. The English teacher comes in--I'm there two days a week, the English teacher comes in every period and she has from four to ten kids. And they come in, they find their book, usually they don't check the book out, but they have a book and they know where it is on the shelf and they plop down on the bean bags and they sit there and read silently for 45 minutes. And this is 9 through 12th grade students. And it's just -- it's wonderful to see after the first two weeks were a little bit difficult and ever since then it's just -- you could hear a pin drop as they sit and do their silent reading. At the Pregnant Minors School these are all young women in high school that either are pregnant or have just had a baby. The nursery is on the bottom floor. And I got rocking chairs, the best investment I could have gotten. So this --is they sit there quietly, sometimes with their little one, sometimes to sit and meet with a social worker or the nurse or a teacher. So I think furniture is real important. I like getting rugs, I have bilingual rugs at two of the schools because I have a huge population of second-language learners, and I think that -- just the kinds of things that you put in as you build a library set the atmosphere and really give it a feeling very specific for that population and for those group of students. I'm at the Hilltop school only one day a week. And the third school I’m at is a continuation school, it's all those kids that aren't at the other schools because they were naughty, but they're wonderful kids, and it's a project-based school. And so that gets into my final area of the academics. And really thinking about, as you do collaborative lessons and as you work with the teachers, having a variety of presentation modes for teaching. And one of the things I try to do is define the vocabulary ahead of time. I think it's a pretty standard practice. But I pullout the words that I think might be a little more challenging and I'll list them, and I'll say, okay, let's go over these words and make sure, you know, I don't even know what this means, and then I ask them what do you think it is? And, you know, just go through a process each time.

So we’ve preloaded the vocabulary, and have visual and written prompts, not just me talking. And I try to put the discussion and the teaching in the hands of the students a lot, so they have them develop rubrics. I have them look at a variety of things and say, well, what would you do if you were teaching this to the other class? Of course, having the print, the non-print, the primary sources, which I think are amazing, and the sustained silent reading that I mentioned before, I think it's a huge, wonderful technique to use with all the students. I use the information literacy big six. I give them a lot of free choice in the things that are the most popular is probably in a lot of the libraries are the graphic novels, graphic books, animals, and then just different themes that go along with the school, what they work on. So that one school I'm at has a project based and they do a lot of the social justice and -- so I have gotten lots and lots of books and I'm suggesting to the teachers to read aloud to the kids, because it's a wonderful technique, and a lot of times the material may not quite grab a teenager, but if they hear it, they're going to get real interested in it. I try to get a lot of community speakers in. Fieldtrips. This year we had a wonderful program, the zoo mobile where a young woman brought in real live little animals. And I had a author program with graphic art authors that wrote graphic books. All these programs I've done with grants, I'm sorry to say, I don't live in a state or a city that really supports libraries as much as it should, but I think all of these things bring different voices and different ideas for the students. And I try to think through each specific school and then the specific students, what is it that will help them develop academically, will help them reach the next step that they need to reach. So in conclusion, I want to say there are 56 -- about 56 million differently-abled people in the United States. One in five students. One in seven students have a learning difference. 32 million people in the United States can't read. So we have a lot of work to do. But I think the libraries are the place to do it. And I was very fortunate to attend the International School Librarian’s conference just a couple weeks ago, and I heard a Dr. Clayton Copeland, and she's at the University of Southern Carolina, and she works in the library and information services department, and her focus is on equity of access. And here is the quote that I wanted to end from, she says, “libraries are the great equalizer of knowledge.” Thank you! Myhill: Thank you so much, Kay. You really bring up a lot of questions that I'd like to follow up with. But I want to pause for a moment and see, I don't want to take over this, so I'll ask other folks, if you have questions you'd like to type or if any of our panelists would like to comment. Then I will jump in. One of the last things you said, Kay, intrigued me, and you sort of -- you sort of almost dismissed it, and its importance is really something for us to talk about. You found this out yourself.

With a lack of support, probably I would make the assumption from state education for library programs and services or perhaps it's on the city level, you said that you have relied upon a lot of different grants to do things. Can you tell us a little bit about your -- you seem to have had a lot of success getting grants, small grants to do different things. Could you tell us a bit about that process for you; where you have perhaps gone to find out about these? What's made you successful at getting these things? Hones: Yes, thank you, William. I really like to talk about grants, because I feel it’s sort of the hidden budget that librarians can access. One of the things is to really know your school and your population. And I feel the three schools I'm at, they're just, you know, they're poster schools for the kinds of things people would like to help in support. But I've had success at other schools too. And what I start out with was a description of the school and the students. And it can be the demographics, the language, special ed, different cultures, that sort of thing. And--but describe it in a—you know, like a very vivid way. And then I do a budget. What do I want? And then after that I tie the two together. And I want to say that for all of you that are in the school library business, I've been very successful with that Great Book Giveaway from ALA, from YALSA, the last two years, the first year I -- the two schools at Hilltop and Civic Center started last--I basically got the shelving in January 2014. And I wrote the grant for Hilltop and I got second place and I got about 500 books. And then this year I said why not, so I wrote it for Civic Center and I checked the box that said media and books. And so I got about 300 books and about 200 audio books. So I just—and that was second place! So I just think, you know, it doesn’t hurt— Unknown Speaker: Wow Hones: It doesn't hurt to try. The other one that's really wonderful that I've gotten recently is the Virginia Hamilton Multicultural one. And I wrote it for the Hilltop, the Pregnant Minors School to get bilingual books for--and I have not only a teen collection, but I have a baby collection. And I do a lot with the students about reading aloud to their children, because they show that children that are read to, the more affluent children, have I think it's a 300 million or 30 million-word difference between children that aren't read to. So I do a lot with the teenagers around reading. So we got that grant this year. So again, it's like making a match between what they're looking for and what you really want. I don't think it's that easy to get things like computers and stuff like that, I mean, I don't have those yet, and I would like them. But the things that I think are really -- if you have -- you know, if you have a unique population and you describe them in a really, you know, interesting way and then you have a budget and you're matching, well, my students need and then -- and you can support me in this way, I think that's the best thing to do. But I know William is going to make our information available,

and if anybody wants to contact me, I'd be glad to talk to them more about it. Thank you. Myhill: Thank you so much, Kay. We do have a question from Ariel. It's tangential, but I want to go ahead and reiterate this fact. She asks, will a recording of this webinar be made available and if so, where? This information will be sent out to everybody who registered through an email and after the webinar. And it does take a little time for some of the information to be made available. The archived version is available typically within 24 hours, maybe even sooner. What takes the longest for us is to transcribe the entire discussion and to get a text version up on the web. So while the archived version where you can literally watch and listen to the discussion will be available, the text version will take a little bit longer for us to put together. Alright. So quickly back to you, Kay. Are there other questions or comments that folks would like to ask at this time or do our other panelists have any sort of reflections that might relate to the things that Kay has shared? Rusk: I would just say when you ask for input before, that there was just so much information, I was taking down notes, I wouldn’t know where to begin to comment, because she gave us so much information, I’m grateful that we’ll be able to look at that later. Myhill: Is that Amy? Rusk: Yes, this is Amy. I just wanted to thank Kay for all that information. Really, she covered such a wide range of topics and she has such a wide -- you know, so many schools, I mean so much different populations that she is serving, so that was just impressive, a lot of great information. Myhill: And Elliott A. adds, I like how Kay said grants are hidden budgets librarians can access. You did a great job. Kamara Mason asks, “which type of grants would be useful to apply for to receive materials?” You kind of got into that, Kay. Are there any other specifics you might add towards types of grants, regards to types of materials? Hones: Well, I think when you look locally, like I've done the DonorsChoose, I think that's pretty much a national program now. With, you know, sometimes I get them, sometimes I don't. So I think it all depends on what is popular with the -- if you have a clever heading, you put in for a particular amount of material that can be books, it can be supplies, and then people go online and they decide whether or not they want to fund your particular grant. It's all teacher based. But it's called DonorsChoose. But a lot of things locally, like here we have a company called Synopsis, and I just happened to ask them one time, they sent out an email or

something, and each year I've gotten those science -- big folders, you know, big display folders from them for free. And, you know, it's things like that I think too that you got to -- you know, and once you make a connection like, there's one bank here that does a grant and I've gone back like three years in a row and gotten it. Once you make that connection and then I invite them to come to the program and -- for instance, this year I had three graphic authors for each school. So I invited the person to come and sit in when one of the authors was there. And that just continues that relationship and connection then. So it takes a little while to build, but I think as you look locally and see what people are, you know, are doing some funding and then, you know, talk to them, well we were looking for, you know, whatever you're looking for, I think that -- I think local is real good. I just have -- I just have to say that Great Books Giveaway, I'm going to try again next year for my third school, because I just have had such good luck with it. But think there’s, you know,--I've tried for some of the other things through YALSA and I haven't gotten them, so then I go back and I tweak them and I send them in the next year and see what happens. Myhill: That's fantastic. We really appreciate this type of feedback from you, Kay. Alright. So as Kay mentioned, I will make sure that everybody has contact information for our panelists to follow up with them with other questions and I would like to go ahead and take the time now to turn things over to Demetria. Graham: Okay. Hello, everyone. I currently work in an urban high school district in Phoenix, Arizona. Our district is slightly different because we are high schools only, and we do serve nine separate high schools with two special program high schools. We are lucky enough to have nine certified media center directors running libraries at the nine high schools. I was one of those last year and absolutely loved my job. And this year I've moved into a slightly different role in my district now being the technology support and training coordinator, which allows me now to serve as the district coordinator for media center directors, which has been an absolute pleasure. So today I would like to talk about universal design. And I'll probably be touching on several things that both Kay and Amy talked about a little bit earlier in the presentation. But universal design is basically the idea that best practices will meet the needs of all people. People with disabilities, people without disabilities, people with second- language learning. So really that it serves the needs of all people or all patrons for your library. So the two main areas that I would like to discuss today are universal design in software needs for the library and then universal design in the physical space in the library and how to have difficult conversations. So in our district a couple years ago it became very apparent that we had a pretty strong need for screen reading software for assistive technology. So several special education teachers who were considered tech savvy evaluated several

different screen-reading software programs. They determine their favorite and of course it had to be one that the district could afford as well. I think that it's not an uncommon problem to have pretty low budgets this day and age particularly in the school library arena. So they determined that there was a particular software that they felt strongly about, and determined that the software licensing was available in two different fashions: one, A per-user license, and two, we could get a district site license for a little bit more. This particular company, the software licensing for individual computers was actually quite high. So it ended up being about $5,000 more to purchase the software for the entire district. So that began our discussions with administrators and people who sign the checks, so to speak, for the district. And that's where I kind of came in and helped with the special ed teachers in helping people to realize that universal design is essential. And I think it's something that probably we've all experienced, but students with or without disabilities just want to be students. They don't want to be singled out and they want to be treated equally. And they have every right to be treated as such. So the idea that the software would be installed on specific computers in specific locations where students would have to physically go there to access them really didn't sit well with us as a group. So we decided that we were really going to process how to convince people that universal design with this screen-reading software was the way to go. And the way we did that was to determine that students with low reading skills could definitely benefit from a screen reading software. ELL students or second-language learners could benefit, as well as special education students, and just your average --I shouldn't say average, but any student can benefit from this. Some people are just auditory learners and a screen-reading software would help increase their comprehension of what it is that they were reading. So we developed a plan for training because it's very important whenever you implement software that your end users are trained. And by end users in our district we wanted to make certain that the students were trained, but probably more essential were the teachers to be trained. So they could help students through the process. And that includes media center directors. So in the end we were able to convince the individuals that we needed to and we were able to fund it because we used universal design as our process for installing and using the software. We were able to actually use Title I funds to make that purchase because it's serving all students' needs, not just special education students' needs. And we now have the screen-reading software installed in all of the public labs on all nine high school campuses and students can actually check out a CD per our software licensing to take that software home now and transfer that use to home usage as well.

We also have headphones for students to check out if they'd like to plug in their headphones to the computer so they're not just disturbing anyone. And again, so they appear just like anyone else, even though they're using the screen reading software. But it doesn't single them out in any way. So that is our software universal design success. As media center director coordinator I've had to have some difficult conversations. I imagine Amy probably has had some of those as well. But we had -- I had a media center director that had a very busy kind of overwhelming space, and I think Kay said it very poignantly when she said that being in those rooms and that busy physical space makes her jumpy. I felt exactly the same way walking into this library. And it wasn't because the librarian didn't care, she cared very much and put an awful lot of effort into her displays and having book displays everywhere and a lot of materials for the students to access and peruse, but it was a little overwhelming. So when having those difficult conversations with people I find that finding common ground to have those difficult conversations from works best. And also non-threatening and non-personal. Because she clearly cared very much about her library and put an awful lot of effort into it. I certainly didn't want to take that away from her or make her feel as though her library wasn't a good place to come. However, it was a little—a little overwhelming. So in having those conversations, what I was able to do was to use Project ENABLE as a starting point for those discussions. And that did the trick. It was completely not personal, it was non-threatening, and then we were able to process together perhaps which displays we could take away for a little while and bring them back out after that. But ultimately, it could have gone very easily another direction. Another example is we had a media center director who had a section of books labeled easy reading. And again, the kids just want to be treated like everyone else. And with the Project ENABLE website and discussions that I was a part of I was able to have that discussion very easily with her and we kind of walked through the process, well, perhaps we shouldn't call it easy reading. Maybe we should put those books into the fiction area and we can mark them in some way or, just so that the students don't feel as though they're being singled out or being forced to visit a separate section of the library because they were very high-interest, low reading level books, which is great, and she definitely had the best intentions at heart. So I think that having Project ENABLE to have those discussions helped me— helped me out immensely. And Elizabeth has a question, are there any free or low-cost screen reading tools that students in elementary school can start learning to use? I would want them to have something they would be able to continue using even as they move on to another school. Elizabeth, that's a great question. ReadWrite has an extension in Chrome that is free. It is a screen reading

software. It's not incredibly robust, but it definitely works well for students. And that's something that will follow them as long as they log into the Chrome browser, then they will have access to that. Okay. And William, I think I’ll turn it back over to you. Myhill: Thank you, Demetria. I’m—I really appreciate the—well, let’s see. Several people have made some very positive reflections upon Project ENABLE, and I certainly do appreciate that. Ruth Small, who is the director of the Center for Digital Literacy, who I’ve been working with several years on this, we are quite passionate about this project and the direction it’s gone, and we’re very happy to hear how people are able to use it. I wonder if I can just cap that a bit further with you, Demetria. If you could just tell me, when you sort of reference Project ENABLE or use it as a basis for a conversation, are there particular things that you use? Are there particular resources? Do you use the online learning modules? Do you use particular activities that you perhaps were introduced to during the workshops? What types of things helped to sort of ease that conversation? Graham: I used the physical space checklist and inventory that we used in Project ENABLE for one of the conversations. And in other conversations I've had with people I've referenced specific modules. And which modules, I apologize, I am not positive which one, but those conversations were so much easier to have once there was common ground from which to start. And again, it wasn't me criticizing in any way, it was just the two of us together as a team exploring the options and opportunities that could better serve students and their needs. I hope that -- oh, good question! Myhill: Yes, so as far as my question goes, that really helps a lot. I like the way when you were discussing these conversations you made it very clear, Demetria, that you could -- well, you -- it's not so easy necessarily for people to recognize when they see something that maybe is done in a way that is unnecessarily creating a barrier for a student disability. But the way you've approached it to where you see and you recognize the intent behind the way the librarian has done something, that there is a real intent to perhaps provide a different type of inclusivity or meet a particular type of need. Recognizing that and recognizing that that is something that is worthwhile before going headstrong as some other people might do into saying, what's wrong with this? That's such a great way to start these conversations. I'm really glad that you've highlighted that particular perspective you have and how you do that. Let me see, someone had a -- oh Ariel, you also mentioned physical space checklist for Project ENABLE. Which particular one were you referring to,

Demetria? Was it one that we used in workshops; was it one that you downloaded from the website? Graham: The one I was referring to is the worksheet that we used when we evaluated the University library. Myhill: Oh, okay. Alright. Graham: That’s the one I was able to have that conversation through and was helpful. Myhill: Alright, thank you. So to answer Ariel's question, yes, we do have these documents available on the Project ENABLE website. And in the text chat room if you can scroll up you'll see the link I've provided to the Project ENABLE website where if you're unfamiliar with it, you can create a free account for yourself and have completely free access to all of the information there. Alright, so let's take a moment. Do we have any other questions right now for Demetria? Do the other panelists have any particular perspective they'd like to add? Rusk: I would just add that -- I mean, I love Demetria saying that what made those conversations possible was finding that common ground, making it non-personal and then using Project ENABLE as the -- blaming Project ENABLE for having the conversation. I don't really mean blaming, but, I mean, it's nice to have had that experience and have that website and have that information as a means of counseling others on their space and so I really agree with that. Myhill: So let me pose a question then, I'll ask all the panelists, and I'll start with you, Demetria. If there was one thing next that you would like to be working on that would improve inclusivity of library services within the -- the Glendale system, what would you want to be working on next? What would be or what is your next initiative to improve inclusivity? Graham: Our next initiative actually has a lot to do with the screen-reading software that I was referencing earlier. As a district we did a wonderful job of training people when we first implemented, and students and staff all received the training. Well, it's been four years since we've implemented the software, and we've not done a concerted push to really provide that professional development that people need and refresh and also update our training and provide further training for people, because you forget. And if you've not used something every day, then, you know, your usage isn't nearly as sufficient or proficient as you would like. So we actually are going to go back and refine and provide further professional development on the screen-reading software so that more students are using it and more teachers are accessing it as well.

Myhill: That's great. That certainly is important. Over time, whether it's through aging of software or technology, whether it's through the -- the lack of use, which can be the case with certain types of technologies, or whether it's just the fact that people change, you have different faculty coming in and out of schools and certainly you have different students. Not all of that information is doing to stay in place. It's going to move along with the people who acquired it, and so we have to make sure we go back in and provide training for the next generation of folks that are in the school. So, Kay, how about you? What’s next on your—on your radar, next big project that you have in mind that would improve inclusivity for students? Hones: Well, just being here today I'm thinking of two things. One is just to do some research on the screen-reading software. I'm not aware of it in the district at all. And just to do some research. Now, we have a lot of databases that aren't getting used either, and I think Demetria hit on it. It's the professional development or lack thereof that happens. The other thing though that I think I can almost immediately work on is I'm going to take all of Amy's ideas for that intake form. We just had middle school and high school librarian meeting last week and they asked us for ideas for the beginning of the school year and also for the four workshops that we have together during the year. And I love that intake form! And I thought, oh, my goodness, this would be such a great thing for everybody to do because we have -- we're all over the map and we rarely see each other. And if we had something like this at the very beginning of the year I think it would just get everybody in the mindset of start looking for ways that we could improve accessibility for all the students. So thanks to both of you, it's great! Myhill: Thank you, Kay. And Amy, how about you? Is there a next big project or an idea you’d like to implement for improving inclusivity in Tucson? Rusk: Well, I agree with Kay that I'd like to do some research on the screen-reading software and look for grants and to pursue that aspect. But what really comes to mind is doing some professional development for administrators. There is a regular principal's meeting, and I just think that bringing Project ENABLE to the district, everybody at the highest level would be really -- I think really important that they understood that that was something that we were trying to implement throughout the district and that that’s something that those people that are in charge of each school and their libraries if they could be looking for as well. And just really didn't occur to me until this webinar just how important that is, how important to take this information that all of us have talked about and bring it to the principals. The principals and then the head of curriculum instruction and everyone -- everyone involved in making the schools run need to understand the idea of inclusivity and how we can make that happen in libraries.

Myhill: All right, fantastic. All right. So let’s completely open things up. If there are comments or questions coming from the audience or if there are comments or questions among panelists, let’s go ahead and get them out there. Hones: I just want to second what Amy said about the PD for the administrators. I think so often we have this push for more inclusion and more--fewer paras and all these sorts of things, and thanks, Amy, for reiterating that everyone needs to get the information and be on the same page when it comes to this. Thank you. Rusk: Oh, thank you. Graham: I agree, it sounds sort of silly, but we often forget administrators when we're doing professional development, and they want to do what's best for the kids as well. So I think it's very important, Amy, thank you for mentioning that and bringing it up. Rusk: Oh, well, great. I'm glad, Demetria, that you had focused on universal design, because I think that's something that I need to refocus on and refresh my memory and really incorporate that too in the intake form or just in my visits to schools. So thank you. Myhill: Well, alright. If we don't have any further questions, I'd like to just take one more opportunity to open it up to our panelists, if there are any last ideas that you would like to leave us with, whether it be a favorite resource that you have or something from your own presentation that you'd like to particularly highlight, then let's hit on those. And then we'll wrap things up. Amy, how about you? Rusk: Oh. Well, it's interesting, I came into this thinking that it's really the one-on-one approach, and yet as we were talking I've really -- I've had very good exchanges with 30 library assistants this year, and then with a number of teachers, but I'm feeling like, yes, the one-on-one is important, but I would also -- I want to think of ways where I can hit more people at once. So again, I do think sort of starting at the top would be important. So it's the personal but also providing some professional development for a wider range of people. And not just library assistants, making sure that people outside of the library also understand why this is important. Myhill: Ok, thank you. And, Kay, anything you’d like to make sure you leave behind for our audience? Hones: Yes. I think including the students in -- I really like to include them in asking for decisions and ideas. I have a notebook about suggestions for books we should order or materials we should get. And having their displays. And I just want to thank Amy and Demetria for these great ideas, you've given me more work than I need, but thank you.

[Laughter] Rusk: Thank you. Myhill: Thank you, Kay. And Demetria, anything you want to sort of finish thing off with, points to drive home? Graham: I think something important to remember is that all students really wanted to be treated the same. And it's important that we remember that or at least keep that in mind when we're designing our libraries and our library spaces so that we're cognizant of that, but designing the spaces to best serve their needs as well. So I guess I'm a big proponent of universal design and I try to incorporate that into designing my library space and how we operate. Thank you. Myhill: Thank you, Demetria, that's really a great place to sort of wrap thing up. Yeah, absolutely, I have to agree that students with or without disabilities, we all want to be treated the same. They don't want separate treatment or different treatment because of a disability. And it always helps me to think about the statement that comes from the Rehabilitation Act that says that disability is a natural part of the human experience. Maybe that could even be improved upon, different ability is a natural part of the human experience. We have such a wide range of abilities among all of us, even if we do not have a disability. That we can look upon those persons who have disabilities as just being another variation. So let's -- thank you all, I would like to thank you all for your time today, the panelists, and we appreciate the audience that tuned in. We will be following up with the information for contacting the panelists with additional questions. There are a series of links that have been put into the chat box that are available. If you wish to provide us feedback, if you wish to visit the Project ENABLE website, and I will make sure that we have contact information for our panelists here. One final note, you will be receiving information via the email address you that you registered for the webinar with, with regards to when the archive materials are available and where they're available. And in order to get access to the transcript. Please share the word about the webinar and this available information for free to your co-workers. And thank you all for your time today. Unknown Speaker: Thank you, William Unknown Speaker: Thank you.