Lora W. Alligood

Collection Development Plan

FRIT 7134

March 12, 2013

Collection Development Evaluation Plan

Description of Site, Faculty, and Students

Youth Elementary School is located in Loganville, about 30 miles east of Atlanta,

Georgia. It is one of nine elementary schools in the Walton County system. A principal

and one Assistant-Principal oversee 33 regular classroom educators supported by eight

para-professionals. In addition, there are six “specials” teachers including two physical

education coaches, one music teacher, one art teacher, one computer teacher and one

media specialist. There are another twelve teachers of ESOL, EIP, gifted, special

education, and self-contained autism. Youth is both the ESOL and Autism cluster school

for our five area elementary schools, serving approximately nine students in each. There

are 127 gifted students and 100 students in EIP.

Our enrollment this year is just over 800 in pre-K through 5th grades. Eighty-four

percent of the students are white, eight percent are black and four percent are Hispanic.

The remaining students are Asian, multi-racial or “other”. Thirty-four percent of the

students receive free or reduced lunch. Eight percent have disabilities and two percent

have limited English proficiency. Last year, 94.12 percent of the third graders at Y.E.S.

met or exceeded the standards in all five of the areas tested by the CRCT. The county-

wide average was lower at 76.77 %. The school has always met AYP.

The demographic of the Youth community where the school is located are similar

to those of the school, although the African American population is somewhat lower as

several families attend Youth under House Bill 251; most of these provide their own

transportation from the Monroe area. The special needs and limited English proficiency

segment of the general population is also smaller since these children are brought to

Y.E.S. from their regularly districted home school so they can receive special services.

Walton County was organized in 1819. It was home to and named in honor of

George Walton, one of the three signers of the Declaration of Independence from

Georgia. According to the 2010 Census, Walton County had 83,768 residents. Walton

County residents enjoy several public libraries which are part of the Uncle Remus

Regional Library System which uses the PINES library system. They have access to

many outside sources.

Youth Elementary School opened in August of 2002. The floor plan includes a

centrally located media center with doors opening onto three of the four surrounding

halls. The current library management software is Surpass with Web-Safari. This has

frequent outages and is being replaced with DESTINY later this month. The libraries

holdings include 23,480 books with 407 of these being declared “missing or lost”. The

county subscribes to several Internet based learning tools including Academy of Reading,

Academy of Math, IXL Math, A+ Learning System, Brain Pop, Learning Village,

Accelerated Reader and STAR Reader. There is also a Follet e-shelf icon on the media

center web-site but a password is required. Students can access Britannica and

Encyclopedia Americana online from any computer with internet connection through the

library web-site along with several web-based atlases, almanacs and dictionaries. The

school’s morning announcements are broadcast live from the media center via IPTV into

all classrooms in the form of a student produced show. Student anchors deliver important

reminders as well as daily segments including the pledge and moment of silence,

student/staff birthdays, weather, sports news, and a daily math problem or other brain

teaser. A small storage room has been converted for this purpose and boasts a green

screen, anchor desk with microphones as well as cameras and other equipment needed for

production. The media center contains 15 student computer stations on wedge-shaped

desks arranged in three circles. There is a printer for the librarian; students cannot print

without assistance.

The school is fortunate to have three computer labs and Wi-Fi throughout. One of

these labs has a full-time lab assistant, one is used primarily by the music teacher and the

other is available on a first-come first served basis via a standing sign-up sheet. All

classrooms have three or more networked computers and a ceiling mounted LCD

projector. Each classroom has a “teacher” computer which is used to access e-mail and

Infinite Campus which is used to take attendance and input grades, as well as two or

more internet connected student computers. Teachers can request permanent loan of an

electronic white board and/ or a document camera or can check these items out of the

media center for short-term use. Audio visual materials can be viewed by the entire

school at once through closed circuit TV. However, teachers can also play DVDs and

VHS tapes in their own rooms on the TV or projected through the LCD projector.

Likewise, web-based videos and saved presentations can be shown from the teacher’s

desktop computer and projected using the LCD projector.

As a current third grade teacher I will focus on a collection plan for the physical

science curriculum for this grade level. There are 129 total third graders this year in six

classrooms. The classrooms are self-contained with pull-outs for EIP, ESOL and gifted

students. The average size is 21.5 students per class. There is one Para-professional for

the grade level who is assigned to the special education inclusion class. Each teacher is

responsible for the entire third grade curriculum including science/social studies which is

taught in a 50 minute block. The curriculum map calls for science and social studies units

to be taught alternately. Additional science time has been created by the absorption of

certain social studies curriculum, specifically the biographies of nine famous Americans,

into the reading curriculum. There is also a 30 minute block at the end of the day that can

used to complete instruction or work in social studies or science. Teachers spend about

three weeks on magnets. Hands on experiments include testing various classroom objects

to see if the magnet is attracted to them, creating a floating magnet, and observing the

magnetic field using iron filings. The earth’s poles and magnetic field are discussed.

Students make a temporary magnet and test a magnet’s strength.

Curriculum Review

Grade: 3, Magnets and Magnetism

State Standards:

S3P2. Students will investigate magnets and how they affect other magnets and common objects.

a. Investigate to find common objects that are attracted to magnets. b. Investigate how magnets attract and repel each other.

National Standards (NETS):1. Creativity and Innovation

Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.

2. Communication and CollaborationStudents use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

1.3.3. Research and Information Fluency Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.6. Technology Operations and Concepts Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations.

Benchmarks:Gravity is weak compared to electric and magnetic forces.

Students have a sense of electric and magnetic force fields (as well as of gravity) and of some simple relations between magnets and electric currents.

Students can explain what conditions produce a magnetic field.

Diagrams of magnetic fields promote some misconceptions about "lines of force," notably that the force exists only on those lines. Students should recognize that the lines are used only to show the direction of the field.

Collection Evaluation

I searched our collection from the library center web-site which students can do

from school with an icon right on the desk top or from any computer with internet

connection thorough the library’s web-page. I used magnetism and magnet as my search

keywords. There are 10 non-fiction books about magnets available for student check out.

The level of the books ranges from 1.9 – 5.5 with three on level 3.5. There are three

videos on VHS with running times of 20 minutes, 14 minutes and 47 minutes. There is

one item in the professional collection for teacher check-out only which contains teacher

created activities for electricity and magnetism. My search also resulted in two craft

books, a ten volume science encyclopedia set, and a book about football at the University

of Georgia. The average copyright of the books was 1999 with none newer than 2004.

The scientific encyclopedias were the 2001 edition. The professional resource was from

2002, while the age of the videos ranged from 96-2000. All but one of these resources

was available despite the fact that six teachers are currently teaching the magnets unit.

This shows that the resources are not being used by the students or faculty. There are no

resources concerning magnets in any language other than English. I found this odd since

we have been the ESOL cluster school for the nine years I have been there. There were

no DVDs or CD-Rom sources.

The non-fiction shelves are along two of the outside walls of the library. They are

labeled by Dewey Decimal number and dividers separate items on the shelves by number.

Larger posters above each shelf also indicate topics that can be found below. Magnets are

found in 531 and 538.

Summary of Collection Needs

1. The current ratio of students to books on the subject was magnets is 12.9 to 1.

Items need to be added to the collection. Though some are older than most

suggested guidelines, they are in good shape. Additional titles should be acquired

with a median reading level of 3.0. The STAR report for fall 2012 indicates that

approximately 40% of this year’s third graders are reading below grade level, 30

percent are on grade level and 30 percent are above grade level.

2. There is a need for books both below and above grade level due to the wide range

of reading levels in the third grade.

3. There are no titles in Spanish despite the fact that we are the ESOL cluster school

and all of our ESOL kids are Hispanic. Items should be available in Spanish.

4. There are three VHS videos but no DVDs or CD-Roms. Newer audio/visual items

should be added to the collection.

5. The technology plan includes the purchase of e-readers for next year. In

preparation for this, e-books should be available when those units arrive.

Materials Order and Budget Summary

I searched multiple vendors including Amazon, Bound-to-Stay-Bound, Follet

Titlewave and Permabound using magnet, magnetism, compass, lodestone, and Chinese

for key words. Amazon only had paperbacks available which do not hold up very well.

Pemabound had the most titles available. I was able to find books in English and in

Spanish, e-books, DVDs, and CD-Roms. However, I did not come close to spending the

$4,000.00 allotted for this project. My total for materials alone without processing and

other fees was $1736.36. I searched other sites including National Geographic looking for

science videos but did not find anything appropriate. There are fiction titles related to

“magnets”, for example Geek Magnet by Kieran Scott, but these are not truly on the

topic; not having a non-fiction component limits the types of materials needed to support

these standards. I was able to find 4 DVDs, 1 digital audio book, 2 CD-Roms, 5 e-books,

2 science sets, 2 book titles in Spanish, and 46 books. Several titles were available as e-

books or in Spanish so the distribution could easily be changed. Only 14% was spent on

non-print sources which is far below the recommended amount. See the Table below.

The book lists and the web sources can be viewed at

http://alligoodlwfrit7134.weebly.com

books DVD Sets e-books Spanish Digital

audio

CD

Rom

Amazon 11

$88.29

1

29.99

Permabound 28

584.04

2

49.99

2 w/ 32

639.68

5

105.43

2

32.41

BtSB 4

90.39

Titlewave 3

55.26

1

19.95

1

8.95

2

31.98

total 817.98 99.93 639.68 105.43 32.41 8.95 31.98

Percentage

of total

spent

47 % 6% 39% 6% 2% Less

than 1%

2%

Resources:

Bound-to-Stay-Bound Books. www.btsb.com

Bradley, K. Youth Elementary School Library. Retrieved from:

http://www.wcpsteacher.org/education/staff/staff.php?sectionid=4194&

Follett Titlewave www.titlewave.com

Nahar, N. “Georgia’s Educational Scoreboard”. The Governor’s Office of Student

Achievement. Retrieved from: www.gaosa.org/Index.aspx

Permabound Books. www.permabound.com

Science Standards Georgia Department of Education. Retrieved from:

https://www.georgiastandards.org

Walton County Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved from: http://www.waltonchamber.org/