Lowell — In the Lowell High School media center, students work on laptops, snuggle up in comfy spots with books, work together on group projects and quietly eat their lunches.
Librarian Christine Beachler says she loves what she sees: students using the library and its resources. The media center has undergone $185,000 in upgrades and renovations over the past five years.
“We are doing what we can to build a culture of reading in this school,” she said. “It’s a very inviting space and the kids like it here. It’s vibrant and colorful, and there are always kids in here utilizing the space. It just makes me happy. It makes my heart happy.”
Senior Zoe Liley sat on a cushioned seat with an ottoman under her feet and commented on the upgrades.
“It’s always very quiet, and I can get good group work done or one-on-one work. I really like the seating; this is my favorite spot to sit.”
The renovations are one reason the media center recently earned exemplary status from School Libraries in the 21st Century (SL 21) program for the first time in its history, a designation for this school year. The program, through the Library of Michigan, uses benchmarks to measure the quality of school library programs within individual school buildings in the state. For the past three years, Lowell High’s media center has earned qualified status, the level below exemplary.
“Everything is new,” Beachler said. “The aesthetics make it much more of a flexible learning environment. … We’ve always done a great job, but we really needed to update because the building is 32 years old, and so a lot of our stuff was 25-27 years old.”
Flexible & Student-friendly
In the library, bookcases, tables and chairs are all on wheels. Two big screens on the walls accommodate presentations. There are many soft seats for reading and studying.
“Things are really, really flexible. We hosted the Supreme Court here and rearranged everything within five minutes,” Beachler said, referring to a reception held following a special Michigan Supreme Court hearing in the auditorium last spring.
Improvements also include painting, flooring, lighting, blinds, furniture technology, and collaboration stations where students can connect a Chromebook to a screen for group projects. They were paid for with district funds and many grants, for which Beachler applied. The district also partnered with Lowell-based company Enwork for furniture.
Staff also completed a huge project “genrefying” the library, meaning the entire collection was organized into categories such as mystery, historical fiction and sports. It was formerly organized in alphabetical order by author. The project included teaching students how to find books they like, Beachler said.
How to be Exemplary
For the SL 21 program, school libraries earn points in categories: school and district infrastructure; building the learning environment; teaching for learning; and leadership in community, with the overall tally determining the status.
To earn exemplary status, a school must have at least a half-time school librarian to apply. Beachler is the only certified librarian in the district and spends 60% of her time at the high school, with the remainder divided among Lowell Middle School and the four district elementary schools.
Part of her and her staff’s time is also spent on community outreach, an SL 21 category that also bumped the library into the exemplary status range for this school year. Beachler is president of the Michigan Association of School Librarians, and she and library staff have been involved in community outreach projects to educate the community on programs and taken part and led professional learning opportunities.
In the media center, while busy at work on her laptop, junior Lindsey Plumley said she likes to spend her fifth hour there “instead of the busy classroom.”
She also likes “that on the computer you can look up any book and see where it is. I also like the genre-sorting. It’s a lot easier instead of looking the old way.”
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