The new school year brought about some new and exciting changes to the Fletcher Maynard Academy Library! Staff, students and many parents may remember the 2nd floor hallway at the end of the school year in June. Every item from the library was removed, packed and placed in the hallway, making room for brand new flooring to be installed. Over the summer that mission was accomplished. In addition, new outlets were installed and we got a fresh, new coat of paint.
September brought the anticipation of setting up our new library space. With help from our custodian, Roger Levesque, and a team of movers, the Assistant Director of Library Media Services, Amy Short, and I, Aishah Abdul-Musawwir, FMA Library Media Teacher, came up with a plan for our new space. The library has almost been completely rearranged and designed to utilize our resources the best way possible. Furthermore, our library now houses a BrightLink Interactive Projector. This tool turns existing dry erase whiteboards and plain walls into interactive workspaces. It also “turns your whiteboard into a giant tablet by using an interactive stylus pen or your fingers to interact with your computer to control, annotate, draw and more.” With the help of our new IT person, Tenzin Jampa, all of our computers have been upgraded, have added memory and are up and running. Finally, new shelving has been installed in both the fiction and nonfiction sections of the library.
Even though a few finishing touches need to be done, our library is definitely a beautiful space, fully functional for all of the FMA community to use and enjoy! Naturally, it took patience, perseverance, and a good amount of elbow grease to get the job done. I cannot end without mentioning the “village” that helped orchestrate this renovation -- high-fives and more to our principal, Robin Harris, the FMA Leadership Committee, the Information, Communications, and Technology Services (ICTS) Assistant Director, Gina Roughton, the FMA Technology Committee, FMA custodians, CPSD facilities and the key administrative members of the CPS who approved this project.
Principal Harris has always called our library “the heart of the school”. It has definitely become a space that will facilitate and support the FMA community to learn, be creative, be curious, be inspired, and be appreciative of its resources. Families are always welcome to our library. Feel free to pay us a visit and see our new space.