THE ONE WHEN LIFE SEEMED PERFECT 2009-2010

THE ONE WHEN LIFE SEEMED PERFECT  2009-2010: Wichita Public Schools: White PreK-5 Library



Our boys were now in High School at Campus High. We were active in our new church St. Peters. Brad went through RCIA and became Catholic. Our boys attended CYO (though years later they told me they hated it!) We seemed to be a perfect family. I often feel guilty about these years and how I used to be. I was narrow minded and judgemental. If you didn’t fit into my world and point of view, I had nothing to do with you. I missed out on connecting with some great people and family members during this time period. Life and its experiences have a way of opening your heart and allowing you to mend/correct your ways. I am happy to tell you that I have. 


I believe that the 2009-2010 school year is when a team of 4th/5th grade girls represented our school in the district's Battle of the Books competion. I am a competitive person and really struggled with getting our participants to read the 100 books required for the competition. I believe that in later years the list was cut in half? I had taken teams to the competition in the past and watched how they would lose in the first round. My heart hurt for my students as life was never easy for many of them at our Title One (school of poverty). I wished success for them so……..


I came up with a way to divide the list into 4 different color groups. I made the division based on genres and reading levels of the books. I used our school colors of YELLOW, WHITE, BLACK  and GRAY for the four different lists. Each color group of books was evenly balanced and allowed participants to be very knowledgeable about ¼ of the book list. Students competed to earn one of the color spots on the team. This ensured that all of the 100 books were read. When the school wide competition began it had more than 100 participants. As students realized that it did involve working and reading many soon dropped out. Participants had to do book reports and make monthly deadlines. By December about 12 kids tested for the four available spots. Some participants actually read more than one of the colored book lists.


I tested the participants to determine the four students that would represent our school. I only remember the name of one of those girls, Precious. She was! Another participant was so introverted/shy that I genuinely had concerns about her being on a live TV show. I WAS WRONG! That student totally changed my perspective about introverts as they are quiet leaders. 


Our school won the Battle of the Books that day. When we returned to school we were greeted with cheers and a hallway parade. It was such a HUGE accomplishment for our South Side Wichita Elementary School. It is one of my teaching moments that I will never forget and it still makes me teary eyed to think about it. My four color method of dividing up the book list took off and other Librarians began doing the same thing. Eventually it became the same shared list among all the Library Media Specialists in USD 259. Last year when I was a part of an interview team for a Librarian position in my school the person interviewing mentioned Battle of the Books and how the district divided up the books into four different color groups. I told that candidate that I was the one that first did that in USD 259. She said, “You started that, WOW it is so helpful!” 


I know that my trip to Idaho has caused me to be a bit behind on my blog as this should have been posted on 3/12/22. Look for my next blog entry on 3/26/22 entitled THE ONE WHERE MY MOM DIED 2010-2011: Wichita Public Schools: White PreK-5 Library

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