Educational Leadership

Leadership roles comes in many styles. I find that I currently use the vertical leader role in the area of library curriculum as the district elementary librarians, along with the head district librarian, are working on seeing that the curriculum is aligned up and down the Kindergarten through fourth grade levels. We've then communicated with the two intermediate grade level librarians, and they communicated with the high school librarian in establishing the up and down curriculum for the coming year. We haven't finished, but we have begun tightening the instructional levels through the creation of common lessons across grade levels. As this is an on-going project, we've agreed to work on curriculum for a portion of our librarian meetings. I've been asking for the library curriculum to be worked on for a couple of years as I've seen the need to change come about with technology being at the forefront of change, yet the curriculum reflect old card catalog issues and teachings. With the arise of Web 2.0, pod casting, blogs, wiki's, social networking, cyberbullying, and research taking place more online than off, the changes in our teachings needed to reflect what we do, not what we have done.
I'm using the adaptive assertive style as well as the dynamic supportive style when I help with these curricular changes. I'm willing to listen to any and all ideas. I'm again, the impartial leader, willing to discuss and hear all sides before making a decision.
At school, I'm the subject area leader, as I'm the only librarian at two schools. I'm responsible for the library curriculum being integrated at the kindergarten through fourth grade levels. I try to meet with teachers at each grade level to find out what they're currently teaching, or will be teaching, and incorporate the appropriate library lesson with their curriculum. For example, when the first grade teachers are doing animal reports, I incorporate how to find information within the non-fiction books, using the glossary, table of contents, index, and citing their information on their paper. This may take a week or two to incorporate all the necessary library skills, depending on what follow up there is in the classroom.
At times this past year, I've been a host teacher for a student taking library courses and needing an experienced elementary library teacher to observe and have a practicum experience. As I found this experience to be very rewarding, I'll continue to host students.
During the school year, I've offered times for staff to come in and learn the basics of searching our Destiny library program. I've taught many of them and will continue to offer this service. I've also had the opportunity to instruct new library assistants in taking over the library when I'm at another school. I'm always available via my email or phone calls when I'm not there to answer pertinent questions.
Sometimes I serve as the technology leader when the computer resource person is unavailable and troubleshooting questions come to me. I'm on the technology committee at the district level, and communicate at times with the staff, as the need arises.