School Planning Template

School Library Media Center Long-Range Planning Guide Template

A. Description of Your School Community

Answering the following questions will help you to develop your school library media center school community description.

1. Brief description of the city or town the school is in. This gives the picture of the broader school community. Information for this can be extracted from the Department of Education web page (doe.mass.edu).

________________________________________________________________________

2. How many children attend your school? __________________________________

3. What grade levels does your school serve? _________________________________

4. Please describe your community. Include demographics, such as population, location, total area, race and ethnicity, income distribution, educational level of the community, $ per pupil for schools, etc.

________________________________________________________________________

5. Any special programs in the school?

________________________________________________________________________

6. Any special needs programs?

________________________________________________________________________

7. What makes your school unique? For example, has it a special mission, special populations, etc.?

________________________________________________________________________

8. Provide a brief summary of the results of state testing and the impact on the school library program

________________________________________________________________________

What makes your school unique?

________________________________________________________________________

B. Description of the Library Media Program

1. Briefly describe your library media program as it currently exists.

________________________________________________________________________

2. What special programs does your library media center provide?

________________________________________________________________________

3. How do students get access to the library media center?

________________________________________________________________________

4. How do teachers access the services of the library media center and of the library media specialist?

________________________________________________________________________

5. Are you working on developing a flexibly accessed library media program? If yes, how?

________________________________________________________________________

6. Is the library media specialist involved in cooperative planning with the classroom teachers?

________________________________________________________________________

7. Is the library media specialist involved in curriculum development with the classroom teachers?

________________________________________________________________________

8. Describe how technology is integrated into the library media program.

________________________________________________________________________

9. Describe library media center involvement with the reading program and literacy development in the school.

________________________________________________________________________

10. What is the budget for the school library media center? (Include breakdown by categories).

________________________________________________________________________

B. Mission Statement

Answering the following questions will help you to develop your school library media center mission statement.

1. What are the opportunities or needs that the school library media center exists to address?

________________________________________________________________________

2. What are we doing to address these needs?

________________________________________________________________________

3. What principles or beliefs guide our work?

________________________________________________________________________

4. Make a worksheet based on the above questions and ask staff, teachers, volunteers, students, etc. to list any words or phrases, or ideas that come to mind with respect to the library media center and these various questions. Look for language and concepts that enjoy great repetition. Use this area to summarize the comments made.

________________________________________________________________________

5. Based on the above responses, use the space below to write your mission statement.

________________________________________________________________________

C. Vision: A vision statement is a set of words or precepts you can put together so you are focusing on a distantly achievable goal. Answering the following questions will help you to develop your school library media center vision statement.

1. What is your vision of what the library media program could be in your school? As a result of the completion of this long-range plan, how will your situation be different three to five years from now?

________________________________________________________________________

2. What will teachers/staff members be saying or doing differently?

________________________________________________________________________

3. What will students be saying or doing differently?

________________________________________________________________________

4. Based on the above responses, use the space below to write your vision statement.

________________________________________________________________________

D. Needs Statement: Answering the following questions will help you to develop your school library media center needs statement.

1. What do you need to go from where you are now to the realization of the vision?

________________________________________________________________________

2. What resources already exist within the school department or outside agency resources that are, or can be devoted to the implementation of the proposed program?

________________________________________________________________________

3. What additional resources are needed (print, non-print resources including electronic resources, personnel, equipment, space, etc.) to make the vision a reality? You should include initial, one-time, and ongoing costs for operating the program or implementing the change.

________________________________________________________________________

4. What are the needs relative to technology?

________________________________________________________________________

5. What are the needs of the library media center with regard to the Americans with Disabilities Act? What are the barriers? Outline corrective action.

________________________________________________________________________

6. Use the space below to prioritize the responses to 1 through 5 above.

________________________________________________________________________

E. Multi-year Goals and Objectives

Goals: Broad statements describing desirable end results toward which the library media center will work over the long-term, encompassing a vision of what services should be available. A goal is not measurable and may never be fully reached but will probably not change over a three to five year period. Together with objectives, goals define a course of action for meeting the needs of a school community.

Based on the information gathered in the previous sections, please list three goals for your library media center.

________________________________________________________________________

Objectives: Specific, short-range statements of results to be achieved to implement a goal. They define what will be done and when. Objectives are measurable, often in terms of student behavior or demonstrated abilities. They include time frames, and may or may not change over a three to five year period depending upon progress made. Based on the goals listed in the section above, please develop the objectives needed to fulfill each goal in the spaces provided below.

________________________________________________________________________

F. Action Plan: For at least the first year of the multi-year goals and objectives, develop an action plan that includes activities, with specific time-frames and /or other means for measuring progress, for achieving the objectives. The action plan enables you to articulate the means to be used to accomplish an objective including specific tasks that will be done in a given year to achieve that objective; activities should include specific timelines and/or other measures for determining when the activities will take place and how the objective will be accomplished. This is the detailed step-by-step plan that leads to the achievement of an objective. Indicate what is to be done, by whom, when, and with what resources.

On the following pages outline your action plan.

ACTION PLAN

The purpose of the action plan is to give you the opportunity to conceptualize and describe the significant goals you wish to achieve in your school library media program within the first year, and to plan how to achieve these goals.

Goal 1

________________________________________________________________________

Objectives Linked to Goal 1

Goal 1. Objective 1 (For year one)

________________________________________________________________________

Activities for Objective 1: Below write activities for each objective and establish time lines or dates for the accomplishment of each step.

________________________________________________________________________

Assessment and Documentation for Objective 1: Indicate below how you will assess and document implementation of objectives and activities.

________________________________________________________________________

Goal 1. Objective 2 (For year one)

________________________________________________________________________

Activities for Objective 2: Below write activities for each objective and establish time lines or dates for the accomplishment of each step.

________________________________________________________________________

Assessment and Documentation for Objective 2: Indicate below how you will assess and document implementation of objectives and activities.

________________________________________________________________________

Goal 1. Objective 3 (For year one)

________________________________________________________________________

Activities for Objective 3: Below write activities for each objective and establish time lines or dates for the accomplishment of each step.

________________________________________________________________________

Assessment and Documentation for Objective 3: Indicate below how you will assess and document implementation of objectives and activities.

________________________________________________________________________

Goal 2

________________________________________________________________________

Objectives Linked to Goal 2

Goal 2. Objective 1 (For year one)

________________________________________________________________________

Activities for Objective 1: Below write activities for each objective and establish time lines or dates for the accomplishment of each step.

________________________________________________________________________

Assessment and Documentation for Objective 1: Indicate below how you will assess and document implementation of objectives and activities.

________________________________________________________________________

Goal 2. Objective 2 (For year one)

________________________________________________________________________

Activities for Objective 2: Below write activities for each objective and establish time lines or dates for the accomplishment of each step.

________________________________________________________________________

Assessment and Documentation for Objective 2: Indicate below how you will assess and document implementation of objectives and activities.

________________________________________________________________________

Goal 2. Objective 3 (For year one)

________________________________________________________________________

Activities for Objective 3: Below write activities for each objective and establish time lines or dates for the accomplishment of each step.

________________________________________________________________________

Assessment and Documentation for Objective 3: Indicate below how you will assess and document implementation of objectives and activities.

________________________________________________________________________

Goal 3

________________________________________________________________________

Objectives Linked to Goal 3

Goal 3. Objective 1 (For year one)

________________________________________________________________________

Activities for Objective 1: Below write activities for each objective and establish time lines or dates for the accomplishment of each step.

________________________________________________________________________

Assessment and Documentation for Objective 1: Indicate below how you will assess and document implementation of objectives and activities.

________________________________________________________________________

Goal 3. Objective 2 (For year one)

________________________________________________________________________

Activities for Objective 2: Below write activities for each objective and establish time lines or dates for the accomplishment of each step.

________________________________________________________________________

Assessment and Documentation for Objective 2: Indicate below how you will assess and document implementation of objectives and activities.

________________________________________________________________________

Goal 3. Objective 3 (For year one)

________________________________________________________________________

Activities for Objective 3: Below write activities for each objective and establish time lines or dates for the accomplishment of each step.

________________________________________________________________________

Assessment and Documentation for Objective 3: Indicate below how you will assess and document implementation of objectives and activities.

________________________________________________________________________

Plan's Methodology: School Library Media Center Long-range Planning Guide prepared for the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners by the biblioTECH Corporation, fall 1998.

List of Committee Members:

_____________________________ ________________________________________

Name Title

_____________________________ ________________________________________

Name Title

______________________________ _______________________________________

Name Title

_____________________________ ________________________________________

Name Title

_____________________________ ________________________________________

Name Title

______________________________ _______________________________________

Name Title

____________________________________________________ ____________

Signature(s) of Library Coordinator and/or Committee Chairperson Date

Approval of Governing Board:

________________________ ____________________ ________________ _____

Signature of Superintendent Name of School District Address Date

Principal, or Director or Private School

and / or

________________________ _____________________ ________________ _____

Signature of School Committee Name of School District Address Date

or Board of Trustees or Private School

LSTA Program | Planning FAQs