LASL September 2024 Newsletter

Louisiana School Librarians,

In this newsletter you will find a place to provide LASL with your thoughts on the new evaluation rubric. We want to support school librarians as our schools navigate this new system and the updates it brings, and we want to be a voice on your behalf in communicating with LDOE on concerns and improvements to be made. We're also including a link to the August Town Hall recording, professional reading, and Battle of the Books info.

If you need support and resources at a local level, please contact us at geauxlasl@gmail.com.

We Need YOU!

The LASL Executive Board

We know that many of you are trying to get a handle on the changing evaluation system being used in Louisiana public schools this year. LASL would like to support school librarians by sharing feedback with LEADS during this pilot year for the new rubric. Please use the Google Form below to share your concerns or other feedback.

This is the program description for the 6-8 grade Battle of the Books competition that will be shared at the upcoming Town Hall Meeting. There will be a similar program (with some adjustments) for the 3-5 grade group. We are also working with the State Library and LTRC Committees to start a monthly virtual high school book club with the books from the LTRC list.

Book Selection:

• The twelve books selected for the school year’s Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice Award ballot will be used for the Battle of the Books Competition.

• 2024-2025 6-8 Book Selection

Librarian/Sponsor Expectations:

• Read and contribute questions for at least three books. Use the Kahoot template to submit your questions.

• Host a school-level competition following the guidelines below.

School-Level Competition:

• School-level competitions may be set up as individual competitions (to determine the top five scorers at your school to create your team) or team competitions (teams of five) to ultimately decide the team of five students who will go on to the regional competition.

• Students should read at least five books from the list in order to participate.

• Competitions should be held in February.

• The competition has three rounds:

• Kahoot: 48 questions/4 from each book

• Puzzle: includes title, author, genre, characters, and summary for each book

• Quiz Bowl: 48 questions/4 from each book; BuzzIn

• Scoring: For each round, individuals/teams are ranked and awarded points accordingly (100 points for the highest scoring individual/team, descending in 10 point increments). Only the teams with the four highest scores from Kahoot and Puzzle rounds will go on to the Quiz Bowl round.

Regional Competition:

• The regional competition will follow the same format as the school-level competition, but with new Kahoot and Quiz Bowl questions. The puzzle round will be the same.

• Competitions should be held in March.

• The competition has three rounds:

• Kahoot: 48 questions/4 from each book

• Puzzle: includes title, author, genre, characters, and summary for each book

• Quiz Bowl: 48 questions/4 from each book; BuzzIn

• Scoring: For each round, teams are ranked and awarded points accordingly (100 points for the highest scoring team, descending in 10 point increments). Only the teams with the four highest scores from Kahoot and Puzzle rounds will go on to the Quiz Bowl round.

• Other activities, such as ice-breaker activities, virtual author visits, Bookmobile collaborations with local public libraries, collaborations/prizes with local bookstores, and lunch are encouraged but should be organized by participating librarians from that region.

Email: geauxlasl@gmail.com

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Twitter: @LAofSL