Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate. At my house, we are foregoing the traditional gathering and dinner, but I am still grateful for so many things.
Apologies for all the acronyms in today's blog post. It would have become too lengthy of a title if I had included them in "standard" form.
On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, I was released from school for the morning to do some important work with two departments: Library and Learning Resources, as well as the English as a Second Language department. The focus was on modifying the current TDSB Long Range Plan template to make it useable for teacher-librarians and ESL teachers.
What does a Long Range Plan (LRP) look like for a Library Learning Commons (LLC) or for a teacher-librarian (TL)?
This is an important consideration. In Ontario, teacher-librarians are teachers first, and if they are to be valued as fellow educators, it helps to show we do similar things to our classroom colleagues. To suggest otherwise might take us down undesirable paths (such as considering that we are non-essential in schools). However, the current long range plan template fails to capture or conceptualize how teacher-librarians plan their program for the year. It also lacks some of the key elements that are additional components to the job.
My long range plans have evolved over the years. I could have sworn I did some sort of presentation or display in the past showing how it morphed from a single lined sheet of paper listing months and themes to a more sophisticated plan that incorporated Ministry of Education curriculum documents as well as expectations from OSLA's Information Studies document and the TDSB ICT Standards.
These are some screenshots of my last year's (2025-2026) Term 1 Long Range Plans:
I realize that even this set-up had to use several "appendices" in order to supplement the information provided here. I referred to my ESL Long Range Plans, which relied heavily on the
STEP (Steps to English Proficiency) continuum to shape my programming in conjunction with Ministry of Education curriculum expectations. As for the collaborative teaching, I pointed to the unit plans I develop with classroom teachers; we co-plan, co-teach, and co-assess but I cannot determine in advance who I will work with on what subject. It depends.
- the Grade 5-6 teacher on a Health unit
- the Grade 2-3 teacher on a Language unit *
- the Grade 4 teacher on a Science unit
I'm about to begin, if everything works out well, units with:
- the other Grade 5-6 teacher (on either Language or Social Studies)
- the Kindergarten teacher (on an integrated literacy/numeracy unit that may involve cooking)
My ESL support time for Grade 6 Social Studies has morphed a bit into more team-teaching, partly because I had so much previous success with my
Crossing the Burble Swamp drama/social studies activity. I really appreciate how much trust the Grade 5-6 teacher has in me, to allow me to interject.
My Junior/Intermediate PLC coverage (with both Grade 5-6 classes simultaneously) has transformed into a
Ctrl-F-influenced digital media unit, with the teachers' approval.
I also signed up to do
Student Vote this year, which wasn't originally on my Bingo card this year but I felt was important to do.
As Agnieszka, Kelly, Victoria and I considered how to modify the existing template, we also felt it was important to highlight the other parts of a teacher-librarian's job. In my annual report (see my Treasure Mountain Canada 8 contribution, "
Decades of Data: Accountability and Impact with Annual Reports"), there are three components in the heading: Instruction, Management, and Leadership. The Management portion includes Collection Development. How might a SLLC indicate the thoughtful process that is part of selecting and deselecting learning materials? It isn't completed willy-nilly. There are purchasing priorities that are determined by school improvement plans, analysis of the current collection, and the learning needs of the particular school. Where are there gaps? What will these new additions accomplish? How do you demonstrate this in advance when specific titles are often discovered at the Resource Fairs, in consultation with board-approved vendors?
We also felt that the teacher-librarian version of the LRP should mimic elements found in the SIP (school improvement plan). The SLLC (school library learning commons) works to further the goals of the school; this is one of the
5 standards of practice in Leading Learning: "advancing the learning community to achieve school goals". (The other Leading Learning Standards are collaboration, instruction, literacies, and learning environments.)
No school library looks identical to any other school library. It is shaped by the teacher-librarian and the school community. In an era of "curriculum fidelity", this may be a tough pill to swallow. When teaching is a mix of science and art, it's hard to regulate conformity. This was proven by the Queen's University / People for Education research study called "
Exemplary School Libraries in Ontario". A quote from their conclusion states:
There are exemplary school library programs in Ontario, but there is not a unitary conception of an exemplary school program, nor is there a single approach that creates an exemplary library program.
It's challenging to do this, to include everything from potential collaborations to collection development to library leadership initiatives, and incorporate Ministry of Education curriculum expectations and School Improvement Plan goals in a single template that teacher-librarians will actually use to communicate their plans in a way that isn't onerous or overwhelming. It will be interesting to see the development of this LRP template tool and to adequately communicate the nuances of an oft-misunderstood profession in a way that leads to positive change.
*PS I couldn't resist including a few photos of the wrap-up to the Grade 2-3 partnership. As I wrote before, I was feeling guilty about not "pulling my weight" in this collaboration. After all, I don't want to be an overpaid EA or merely a drop-in contributor. To get ready for Curriculum Night (which was Thursday, October 8, 2026 this year), the students did tape resist art based on their One Word. Then, we used the library's green screen to record a short message about their one word choice. I loved this project because I myself do a One Word focus every year and
this is my tenth year choosing a word.
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