Assignment+2

=LIBE 463=

Assignment #2
= **Community Analysis and Report** =

__School Data and Community Information__
**Sidney Elementary is situated in the heart of a small sea** **side community on Vancouver Island. We have access to the mainland by ferry or plane. Bus service is available in Sidney and to downtown Victoria (approximately 20 km away). The population is approximately 12,500 people (taken from the Town of Sidney website below). The town of Sidney has many multimillion dollar waterfront homes, apartments and condominiums. It is home to a large retirement-age population. As well, Sidney has many low-income houses, duplexes and apartments. Many families come to live in Sidney because the income earners can work in old-age care facilities (we have many). Every year our English as a Second Language learner population increases. We also have many families with one or both parents working. The mix of very old and very young makes Sidney interesting. These are my observations as I have lived in Sidney for 19 years.**

**Sidney Elementary is catchment area to students of the town of Sidney as well as families across the highway in North Saanich. Here ****is a map of our catchment area and a lovely view of how close to the waterfront we are located.**

http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=111581073709807409042.0004667037770be6b0a9e&ll=48.652481,-123.409446&spn=0.055426,0.039439&source=embed

__Sidney Elementary School __
http://maps.google.ca/?ll=48.652276,-123.403738&spn=0.007052,0.00869&t=m&z=17&vpsrc=0&layer=c&cbll=48.652309,-123.40374&panoid=R4meV9Ey9tT452AyiPjatA&cbp=12,258.38,,0,0

**Sidney Elementary is an all English, K-5 school. Here is a link to our website:**

http://sidney.sd63.bc.ca/

**We are a very old building (we are celebrating our 60th anniversary this year) with very old classrooms and furniture. When looking around the district at other schools, Sidney appears to be a 'have-not' school. I was not aware of this until I started visiting our local school libraries for mentorship. Our library is very much in need of an office renovation. I have had my husband add shelving as a temporary measure to get resources up off the floor. This has been a very disturbing finding. My PAC is starting a fund raising campaign to try and raise money for furniture for the library. They are aiming at $10,000.**

__**Community Profile** __
**According to the Town of Sidney's website Community Profile** [|www.**sidney**.ca/] **Sidney is "a unique combination of urban amenities and spectacular natural surroundings". It is a pedestrian friendly town and many of our students and staff bike or walk to school, year round. The age distribution** **is typically much higher in the older population than the rest of the CRD.**

**The population of Sidney Elementary School is 277 students. We have had declining enrolment for several years. We are mainly all caucasian with about 22 children from the Phillipines (this is data that does not accurately show up in census information). These children typically need support in understanding what they are reading. Many of these ESL students are excellent at 'word calling' but have no idea what they have read.**

**In 2005, Greenglade Elementary School (another local community school) was amalgamated with Sidney School. This brought over duplicate resources and sealed boxes of resources that I am just opening up right now. Sidney School is full of junk that has not been properly dealt with (I am in my fifth year here).**

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Sidney Elementary School is home to StrongStart**early learning <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**childhood center.** <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/early_learning/strongstart_bc/

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**This is a program we qualified for based on the needs of our families, before other schools in our district. It is for 0-5 years of age with a caregiver. A qualified Early Childhood Educator runs this program five days a week for three hours a day. It is designed to educate both the child and the adult. It is free and fabulous!**

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">__ **Community Resources and Partners** __
<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**We are a small-town school and can walk to many fabulous resources. To name a few:**


 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Public Library (the local librarian Sharon Walker comes over to our school several times a year to do book talks; many classes walk over and visit her too). She provides us with access to resources when our students are doing research projects.**
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Volunteer Fire Department**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> **Shaw Ocean Discovery Center (field trips and resources)** http://www.oceandiscovery.ca/
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Many beaches**
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Police Station**
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Historical Museum**
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Mary Winspear Community Center**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> **Star Cinema (we can take our classes for special movies)** http://starcinema.ca/ [[image:finalthird/Pier_in_the_summer.jpg]]
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Piers**
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Senior Centers**
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Thrifty Foods (they give us lots of food donations and tours)**
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Tanner's Children Bookshop
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Many local farms and nurseries (tours and donations)
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Parkland Secondary School
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">North Saanich Middle School

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**We have been active viewers of the Hancock Wildlife Foundation Eagle Cameras. These are cameras set up in trees where eagles have nested. The cameras are on 24 hours a day and can be viewed in daylight hours. We have watched a mother eagle leave the nest for less than a minute and have one of her eggs stolen by a raven. The students have watched the eaglets use their egg tooth to chip a hole in their shell and crack out of their shell. We watch as the eagle parents tirelessly feed their young. The camera we watch is one of our local eagle nests.** <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">http://hancockwildlife.org/ <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Our school donated money for the upkeep of the camera and had a visit from the local expert, David Hancock. If we weren't in job action this year, we would be doing a school-wide fund-raising campaign for the Eagle Camera. My class last year was on the news several times talking about the eagles and we got to name the three eaglets from the Sidney camera! Needless to say, we had to buy more eagle books.**

__<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Our Collection** __
<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Due to our close location to many beaches and piers, we have a large collection of fiction and non-fiction books on topics like beach, ocean, local birds, sea life, sea shells,etcetera. Bishop noted that "the location of the community, its climate, and its recreational patterns also make demands on the collection" (2007, p. 20). We try to include many local authors in our collection (they also come and do book talks). It is not uncommon to view otters, seals, salmon, sea lions, black porpoises and orca whales. We have seagulls, large blue herons, eagles, turkey vultures, falcons, cooper hawks, owls, crows and many small birds. There are sea stars, crabs, jellyfish and numerous shellfish on our beaches. This is just a snippet of the animals and birds that are easily found in our community.Our library collection reflects our closeness to nature.**

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**I always have a wonder table out with things I've found in nature-it is now a popular addition to our library.** **I love to display books depicting the same thing and these** **'bait' books I put nearby are always being checked out. Children are always bringing their treasures in to contribute to our collection of natural objects.**

__<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Grade Two Science Curriculum __
<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Here is the link to the Grade Two Science Curriculum:** <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/curric_grade_packages/gr2curric_req.pdf

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Earth and Space Science-Air, Water and Soil
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">All three of these topics can be supported through our extensive Bill Nye collection of Science DVD's.

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">Students need to have access to a wide variety of resources to have their Science PLO's met. The libary has a large collection of print, posters, dvd's and supplies. Unfortunately, it is spread haphazardly over three different rooms. I am struggling to compile it all in one location so I can see what we have. Some is catalogued and some is not. At this time I believe I will find some outdated and not very useful materials as well as some excellent ones.

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">Our district subscribes to ERAC (Education Resource Acquisition Consortium) and we have a nice bundle of websites that the students and teachers have access to under the Library tab on the school website. I did not know this until last week. I asked several teachers and it appears nobody knows about these great resources. Here are a few: Discovery Education, National Geographic Kids, World Book, Encyclopedia of British Columbia. I believe this to be a fabulous addition to our physical collection.

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Properties of Matter** can be supported through access to print materials/on-line resources which give instructions to experiments and examples. We have many books that explain the properties of matter, most of them are not that new. Our Science cupboard will need to be stocked so teachers do not need to buy supplies. Our local secondary school has supported us with having their students teach our students by conducting simple experiments. Thrifty Foods will donate supplies when we request.

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Life Science: Animal Growth and Change** can be taught and supported in a large variety of ways. We have so many local mammals, birds and marine animals close at hand that we always try to study locally. Hancock Wildlife's eagle camera gave the students a real-time experience with how eagles are important to the environment (eating road kill; their food of choice), changes that affect eagles (weather, food supply), what they need to survive. We had our local raptors society bring a turkey vulture to our school and compare and contrast eagles with turkey vultures (they are both local). Our entire school population could probably now identify the differences between the two birds of prey.

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Ocean Discovery Center is a rich resource for anything marine related. They offer guided information tours for a fee per student. <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Both students and teachers have access to the ERAC bundle that will allow them to search for animal information on sites like Discovery Kids and National Geographic.
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Check out this great u-tube video:
 * <span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">"http://www.youtube.com/v/IWijImo7ejs?version=3">

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**Earth and Space Science-Air, Water and Soil** is supported in one way through the use of a large piece of property at Sidney Elementary School in which we have created many raised gardens. These gardens are used by classes in their studies of why air, water and soil are important for living things. Our local nurseries donate needed soil, seeds and gardening tools. We have supplies that will allow teachers to conduct experiments that show the physical properties of air, water and soil. Like I have mentioned before, it is just a matter of finding these supplies.

__<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Teachers __
<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">We have three teachers teaching two Grade Two classes this year. Both of these classes have 22 children in them. Two of the teachers have less than three years teaching experience at this grade level. I am very good friends with them and see them outside of school. I know they will be honest with me about our collection needs. Both of them have been teaching less than eight years. One of these teachers has a .3 teacher who is sharing in the Science teaching. He is a high-school/ESL teacher who has not taught in an Elementary classroom in a long, long time. All of these teachers have come to see me several times asking for resources. The .3 teacher was thrilled when I cleaned out one of the Science rooms and he discovered equipment for his experiments. He will be needing lots of equipment and resources for 'hands-on science' experiments. The .3 teacher is a wealth of Science knowledge and loves to conduct experiments with his class. He is going to help me to 'plump' up our general science supplies to make experiments easier and more accessible for teachers.

__<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Library Schedule __
<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Traditionally Sidney's book exchange has been done by our Library Tech in a fixed schedule way. As this is my first year we have kept to this fixed schedule for book exchange and the Tech is doing most of this in the mornings. I am doing my Reading Recovery job at that time. In the afternoons when I am in the library, several classes do book exchange and I will be doing some prep and teaching. I am currently doing a newspaper with a small group of grade fives and will be doing inquiry-based learning with several teachers and students. We will be doing this inquiry-based learning through the topic of Science. I am going to the BCTLA conference in October and am taking two courses on inquiry-based learning to help us to get started. We plan on using the library mainly as a flexible, changing schedule in the afternoons. We will be using a combination of flexible and fixed scheduling. This is in line with a comment from Bishop that "some elementary media specialists consider the mixed scheduling to be the ideal program" (2007, p. 27).

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">In the past our library has not been used as a place for collaborative teaching. This is changing.

<span style="color: #47539b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">References
====<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Bishop, K. (2007). The Collection Program in Schools: Concepts, Practices and Information Sources. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. ====

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">British Columbia Ministry of Education Curriculum Package (2010) http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/curric_grade_packages/gr2curric_req.pdf