The summer of 2010 was the fastest on record – for me, at least. I now find myself back in the media center ordering, cataloging and checking out books as if I never left. We completed the gargantuan job of cataloging and barcoding all of our textbooks this summer so our students will now have their textbooks checked out to them through the library circulation system. That was a huge and sometimes frustrating job but it gave a few of our teachers some much needed summer work!

Let’s talk about more pleasant things: pleasure reading! This year’s Sunshine State Young Readers’ Award (SSYRA) booklist looks like an exciting line-up. Of the 15 books chosen by media specialists who spend their summers reading hundreds of nominated books, one is guaranteed to appeal to your middle school reader.

Take a look at this year’s list: http://myssyra.org/grades6_8/68list.html.

I’m particularly looking forward to reading Taken by Edward Bloor. His is the author of the very popular title, Tangerine and lives right here in Orange County. He visited the media center last year and met with the students that write for Howard Hype, our school newspaper. Now that he is on the SSYRA list I’m sure his visits will be in great demand. He is very generous with the time he gives OCPS school children and we are lucky to have such a noted children’s author in our midst.

Not to sound foreboding, but it is true. Only 16 more school days until summer break! All library books are due back to the media center by May 28th. This gives me less than two weeks to round up the overdues, notify the students regarding any fine owed, inventory, and the many other clerical jobs of closing out the library for the summer. Parents, you can help by looking in your child's room for any books from the media center. If a student does not return a book that is checked out to him/her, the book stays on the student's record until it is returned or paid for. The fine follows them year after year, school after school. Many of our students owe for books from other schools within the district. If that is the case, I can collect the money and send it to the former OCPS school. I will be running overdue notices frequently from now until the end of the year. Ask your student if they have one. A child with an overdue book has lost their library privileges until it is returned. I would hate for your student to start next school year unable to use the media center! This is true for the 8th graders going on to high school. These students will need access to the many resources of their high school library. Help your student, help your schools: return library books!

The OCPS Middle School Battle of the Books is Tuesday, May 4th. Our team has been meeting and talking about the 15 Sunshine State Young Reader Award books that the battle questions are based on since January and we are ready to do battle with the other 31 middle schools that are participating this year. The team is limited to six students. This year the students are Gina Dignam, captain, Kenneth Dignam, Ian Vanness, Austin Mauricette, Peter Ly and Dyanne Rivera. We will be leaving Howard at 9:00 AM and will return before the end of the school day. If you see these kids today, wish them luck. It is always a fun day, full of competition, drama and sometimes disappointment but they all love the pizza and ice cream lunch!

He vetoed SB6! I’m so proud of him. Instead of succumbing to political pressure, he actually listened to the people most effected by this bill and to those most knowledgeable on the subject of public education, i.e. educators. Amazing! I may have to vote for him now.

His critics say he was influenced by the teachers’ union. I'm afraid they overestimate the power of that organization. No, he was influenced by the flaws of the bill itself. There is no need for me to state the problems with this piece of legislation here. Much has been written on the subject. In fact, if I type ‘teacher merit pay’ and ‘Florida’ into Google I get over 500,000 hits. If I type ‘SB6’ I get over 1,000,000! (However, some refer to the band Sonic Boom Six).

One of the troubling things about this bill is the implication that our schools are overrun with bad teachers and if we could just get rid of them our educational problems will be solved. This is simply not true. Bad teachers exist, of course, (as do bad legislators) but, as a whole, our profession has risen to every challenge placed before us. This bill, however, would have us answering for all societal woes from poverty to family dysfunction. Would we base our legislators’ salaries on unemployment or divorce rates? Of course not! I would love to see someone propose that and listen to them squeal!

We won’t hear the end of this debate for years to come. While lawmakers, lawyers, unions and taxpayers all weigh in on how we should do our jobs and how well we do them, teachers will continue to perform miracles on a daily basis. Today, a student told me he never knew the Civil War was so interesting until he read With Every Drop of Blood by James Lincoln Collier. Now that’s a miracle!

It's a beautiful day in Orlando. Sunny, mild, clear skies and twittering birds singing a maximum of 140 notes. It's the day before the students leave on spring break. I should be feeling joyful, but there is a black cloud over my head due to yesterday's passage of Bill 6 - the bill that proposes a new merit-pay evaluation system that would do away with teachers' salaries based on degrees and experience and instead be based on student test scores. Of course, there is no plan or funding to implement this. The fact is, no one has ever been able to come up with a fair evaluation system based on student performance because the concept itself is unfair. There are too many factors that figure into how well a child will perform on a given test on a given day over which the teacher has no control. I have little faith that the politicians in Tallahassee can devise a working formula that will satisfy educators or parents; instead they have opened Pandora's box letting out fear, disparagement, disrespect and anger. The stinging pests are flying above our heads now as we ask each other how this bill will ultimately affect us.One of the articles states that no more rewards will be given for National Board Certification or higher degrees. Let's see...we now work for an educational system that does not value higher acheivement or education. Did I just wake up in an alternate universe? All the repercussions of this bill are unforeseeable, but at present, I'm swatting at disbelief and demoralization. Wait, what's that? No, it's not hope; it's chaos.