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Connecting with Policymakers: Conversations about the National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries

By AASL Standards and Guidelines Implementation Task Force on 01/22/2018 • ( 1 )

By Mary Keeling, Chair, Standards Implementation Task Force, and Kathryn Roots Lewis, Standards Editorial Board

How will you discuss the National School Library Standards with policymakers?

Join Mary Keeling, Kathryn Roots Lewis, and Kathy Mansfield in a webinar designed to lead you through thinking about this topic.

As we (Mary and Kathryn) are preparing to meet with district leaders in our respective districts, we have discussed how important it is to structure these conversations around the values, needs, and issues of the policymakers. For many years, we have both read the literature that our principals, central office administrators, and state policymakers peruse — the periodicals, books, and articles that resonate with them. By doing this it gives us a sense of what is critically important to each of them. As we took a look at the themes of the issues of Educational Leadership and Phi Delta Kappan over the last three years, we saw many alignments to the National School Library Standards and the work that school librarians do every day, day-in and-out, for their school communities.

This chart shows how the Shared Foundations in the National School Library Standards relate to a sampling of themes that have shaped Educational Leadership and Phi Delta Kappan over the last three years. Many of the themes cross over into multiple Shared Foundations. We selected one for each.

*Shared Foundation*	*Educational Leadership*	*Phi Delta Kappan*
Inquire	Questioning for Learning
Include	Differences not Disabilities Disrupting Inequity The Global-Ready Student Helping ELLs Excel Relationships First Culturally Diverse Classrooms	Black Student Learning Matters Civility and Controversy College Access and Opportunity Emotional Life and Learning
Collaborate	Co-Teaching Making It Work	A Call for Career and Personal Skills
Curate	This is your superpower! School librarians can curate resources on any of these topics!
Explore	Unleashing Problem Solvers Literacy in Every Classroom In Sync with Families	Chronic Absenteeism From High School to College
Engage	Citizens in the Making

Interestingly we are both preparing for meetings with our respective district administrators about the new National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries. Even as we know our respective situations are very unique and we both approach these conversations in different ways, we have discussed the many commonalities of how this process might look and more importantly how it relates to our administrators. The exercise of charting the alignment between the Shared Foundations and the themes in education now gives us the language we need to talk about the AASL Standards in ways that will resonate with our policymakers. In addition, we have developed a tip sheet on how to structure the conversation. Join us to get some ideas for talking about the National School Library Standards with YOUR policymakers!

Mary Keeling, Kathryn Roots Lewis, and Kathy Mansfield will give you support and strategies to have a collegial conversation with your policymaker about the standards and how the library does indeed transform teaching, learning, and school culture.