I visited Mack Benn Jr Elementary School library for my school library visit.
SPACE
Mack Benn Jr Elementary School in Suffolk Virginia was built in 1998. It is a brick one story building tucked back a bit off a busy main road in Suffolk. It is in a residential neighborhood. According to the Virginia Department of Education School Profile (n.d) In the 2020-2021 school year, Mack Benn was home to about 640 pk-5th grade students and is a Title 1 school. Approximately 88% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. The media center is in the center of the building and boasts many windows facing the main hallway. It has high ceilings, a large skylight, and the walls painted with murals of superheroes and buildings. The room itself has great natural light and overall a nice feel with the high ceilings. However, it was very cluttered at the time and felt overwhelming and unorganized. I chalk this up to being the end of the school year packup. The middle of the space houses 7 large tables. On one side of the tables are the bookshelves and to the other side is the circulation desk. There is an alcove off the entrance that has appealing built in desks and colors block wall art. However the area is blocked to student use and is filled with shelves to store math materials for the building. Staff have access to the items on the shelves but it appears to be unorganized and overall taking away a unique and appealing space from students. Personally, I immediately thought this alcove would be ideal for a makerspace. In the Rubin and Rubin (2020) section about makerspace, they talk about the importance of makerspace in the school library and the learning benefits to having a designated space for this type of learning (p. 156-157). It seems to me that this media center already has the space it’s just not being utilized correctly.
At the back of the library there is a small amphitheater type area. The area is a semi circle with three levels of seating and a small “stage” area. At the back of this area there is a smartboard mounted to the wall. To the right of this area there were 3 desktop computers. On the school website main page it emphasizes “and a media center equipped with a technology lab” (Mack Benn Jr Elementary School, n.d.). There was no evidence of a technology lab. There are three small rooms off the main area, one as an office for the Media Specialist, one room used as a lactation area for the building and one room used to house servers and Chromebooks.
DIGITAL ACCESS
The school library does have an online system to access e-books and to reserve books to check out. The url is https://destiny.spsk12.net/common/servlet/presenthomeform.do?l2m=Home&tm=Home&l2m=Home. It was difficult initially for me to find the site. I had to go through staff links on the distinct website to get there. Once I was there, it was easy to navigate and look up books. The website showed the book’s covers and flagged if the book was checked in or out. I think it would be an easy website for students to use, after they found the initial link.
COLLECTIONS
The library utilizes the Dewey Decimal System. One thing I did like was the use of visuals to assist the students to find books. For example, by the section about dinosaurs there was a picture of a dinosaur. There were also pictures by the fiction books where popular authors are found. Like a picture of a caterpillar near the Eric Carle books. I think this likely helps students be more independent in the library when looking for books. There was a display of books for Black History and one of books of Virginia Readers Choice. There were two small rolling bookshelves that showcased picture books with people of color on the covers.
PEOPLE
On the school library website there is one librarian listed and one librarian assistant. The website is out of date, as there is no longer an assistant for the library. I observed the school librarian in the amphitheater area teaching a class of kindergarteners. She was utilizing the smartboard to show the class a YouTube video of a picture book read aloud. After the class, I observed her to assist a custodial worker who came into the library looking for help printing his recent pay stub. During her time not assisting students or peers, she was managing Chromebook turn in. The entire time I was there she didn’t sit down!
FINAL THOUGHTS
At the time of my visit, it was nearing the end of the school year and the library was overrun with Chromebooks and boxes. The end of the year collection of technology was happening and there were Chromebooks on many table surfaces as well as on tops of the lower bookshelves. I understood this to be temporary but to me it reflected a general disregard for the library space. Paired with the alcove being overrun by non-library materials it gives the impression that the library is not a priority for the building.
References
Mack Benn Jr Elementary School. (n.d). About us. https://mbes.spsk12.net/
Rubin, R. E., & Rubin, R. G. (2020). Foundations of library and information science (5th ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.
Virginia Department of Education. (n.d.). Mack Benn Jr school quality profile. https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/mack-benn-jr-elementary#fndtn-desktopTabs-climate
Your impression of the space being, “very cluttered at the time and felt overwhelming and unorganized” is also how I felt about JYMS Media Center. Like there wasn’t loads of chromebooks out when I was there, but seeing it filled with just a few staff working I couldn’t imagine any large group of students comfortably occupying that space simultaneously. I also think you hit the nail on the head with your closing, and would even take it a step further to say that sadly it appears libraries are not a priority for Suffolk Public School District.
That is so sad that about libraries not being a priority for this school district. My school is lucking that we have a technology assistant who handles all of the Chromebooks so the librarian doesn’t have to.
Thank you for this school tour! It does sound like end-of-the-year clutter, but perhaps it’s even more than that! Maybe they need some volunteers or fresh blood in there to revamp and clean house! I am not sure how much testing happens at the elementary level, but at the middle school, we three library staff were testing for the last six weeks of school! It was intense, and we could not do our “normal” work within the library. Books and projects do tend to pile up during that time. I like those visuals (stickers) to assist students in finding their own books. We were debating about doing some of that at middle school level.
Thank you for the school tour! I wonder how it looks while school is happening. Seeing the math storage gave me so much anxiety and I would have wanted to start cleaning if I visited. It defiantly sounds like it needs some TLC and is not using the space to its full potential. I am starting to wonder why the online half of school libraries aren’t really given any attention. I had to google to even find the site for the library I wrote about.