I saved my supervising media specialist for my very last interview.

She was very nervous to

be on camera, hence why she is partially out of frame. We had a lot of fun filming this but
you can definitely feel the nerves in the room as you watch this video.

Deidra Ross has worked at Calhoun City Schools as a media specialist for 23 years making
her the most experienced media specialist I interviewed during this class. Mrs. Ross is the
only certified media specialist in the district so she is stretched very thin and must rely
heavily on the media clerks at each school location to run the day to day business when she is
not there. Right now, she serves three locations: a combined pre-k and elementary library, the
middle school library, and the high school library. She has been the captain of all three ships
for the last 8 years. Prior to that, she was solely responsible for the middle school library. Her
first job in the district was at the primary school. This means that Mrs. Ross, who now spends
the majority of her time in the high school location, has seen and done it all.

Before she became a media specialist, Mrs. Ross worked with the Boys and GIrls Club and in
other various day care and babysitting roles. She feels this early exposure to working with
children helped her learn patience and understanding for all age groups. Throughout school,
she was very interested in technology so she was immediately open to the prospect of leading
a school staff through the uncharted waters of incorporating technology use in the school
systems she served. She also believes doing many different jobs and wearing many different
hats at those jobs helped develop good multitasking and prioritization skills that clearly serve
her well now.

Mrs. Ross was initially attracted the the role of the school librarian because she felt it was
truly the best job on campus. She loved the idea of getting to work with everyone on campus
and that her day to day tasks would always be a little different. The potential for variety and
creativity is unlimited. She admits that even still, there’s always something new and fun
happening in each media center which makes the job feel fresh and exciting even though
she’s more than two decades in.
Mrs. Ross received her Master’s in Instructional Technology from the University of Georgia.
She interned at a high school in Athens but she volunteered to work at middle and elementary
locations around the town as well to get a more complete picture of the kind of work she
would be doing. We both agreed that we enjoyed seeing the differences between the grade
levels during our practicum experiences. Each level really does take on its own personality.
The one thing she feels her program could not prepare her for is the sheer amount of “other”
tasks she would be responsible for doing. It’s not all reading circles and checking out books!
Throughout her time as a media specialist she has had to head up technology repair and
inventory, school equipment inventory, and other tedious tasks. The one she specifically
chuckled about was the time she was asked to host a casino night in the center for the
school’s Christmas party. She always takes these new tasks on with a desire to try something
different.

To develop a relationship with her teachers, Mrs. Ross likes to attend grade level planning
meetings to try to identify some areas where she can be of service. Once she gets in the room
she can immediately advertise a library service that might enhance their lessons and she finds
that is the easiest way to reach the teachers. She also attends department meetings and other
PLD for staff that she doesn’t necessarily need to attend but she does so anyways just to be a
part of the team. She stated sometimes it just takes one success with a teacher or a group of
teachers and then the news spreads like wildfire.

Mrs. Ross sees the role of the library in the school’s reading program as the place to
encourage excitement around reading. When students walk into any of the three centers, she
wants them to feel excited to pick their next book and wants them to basically infect the less
excited students with their enthusiasm until everyone has been paired with a book they love.
Some ways she encourages this love of reading is by starting with the teachers. Whenever
new books come in, she invites teachers to come browse the new selections so that they can
hype them up in the classrooms. She often lures the teachers in with the promise of a treat
such as free coffee or a donut. She and her clerks offer to pull books or create book lists for
teachers to fit in with their units or lessons. This can help direct students to more specific and
appropriate readings. She also promotes books through google classroom and hosts weekly
raffles to entice the kids to keep checking back in.

As far as professional development goes, Mrs. Ross tends to stick to more small group or one
on one types of support. She used to lead all technology related staff development meetings
but now that CCS has a full tech-team, she no longer has to do that.

For her own professional growth, Mrs. Ross likes to sign up to attend conferences and enjoys
participating in webinars whenever she can. She is also a member of the GLMA and several
email listservs. She encouraged the use of social media to reach other media specialists
around the world, mentioning that they are always very helpful.
Diversity is very important to Mrs. Ross and it is one of her main goals when it comes to
personal growth over the next 7 years of her career. She wants the library to feel welcoming
to every student and teacher and she wants each person to have books that represent who they
are. To do this, she often runs collection development analysis reports on titlewave to identify
gaps in her collection. She likes looking at major literature award lists when making
purchasing decisions too because they often contain diverse authors, characters and subjects.
Similarly, she wants every student to have access to age and skill-appropriate materials. She
makes sure to keep the physical, ebook, and audiobook collections updated and well attended.
She asks teachers biannually for input on the collection and services and is always willing to
purchase whatever they feel is needed to support their students.

I have loved working with Mrs. Ross over the last few months. She really is a vast well of
information and passion for this job. I think she does a great job juggling all of her
responsibilities and still maintaining the integrity of each center she serves. I am looking
forward to working with her more in the future as I enter the field.