Amy Krengel has worked at McCleskey Middle School for the last 5 years.

Before becoming a
media specialist, she was a classroom teacher for 8 years working mostly in the ELA
department in 6-8th grades. She had a brief stint working with non-profits, including the March
of Dimes. She said non-profit work helped prepare her specifically for the life of an underfunded
media specialist and the art of doing more with less. One of the major reasons she switched
from being a classroom teacher to a media specialist was because she felt that it offered a
unique ability to work in a school system without being bogged down by the challenges of
classroom teaching. The media center offered her a chance to be creative and the ability to do
many different tasks. We joked about how much fun the life of a school educator can be when
you aren’t completely bogged down by having to do time consuming tasks like grading. She also
seemed to really like the role of being a major support to the classroom teachers in her school.

Her degree is actually in Instructional Technology. She picked this specific degree because she
wanted to do something unique in the education field. When she decided it was time to get her
master’s degree, most of her colleagues were getting degrees in their subject areas. Mrs
Krengel wanted to do something a little different that would help enhance her ability to guide and
influence learning without tying herself down in one content area. She feels like her educational
experience really helped her identify the positive impact a media specialist could have on a
school. We briefly discussed how no program can ever truly prepare a prospective media
specialist for their first year. A lot of the day to day life and work of the job has to be learned
through direct experience. Mrs Krengel actually completed her master’s at Georgia Southern so
she is no stranger to this practicum experience. Although it was several years ago, she
recognized a lot of what I’m having to do and felt that this class best prepares a person for being
a media specialist because the students do get the hands-on experience.

As for cooperative learning and planning, Mrs. Krengel made a good case for simply being
available and willing to work with a teacher on their own terms. She acts a sort of showcase for
new and exciting programs that she thinks will help the teachers in her school. Her basic
approach is to advertise a program to a teacher by communicating how the program or lesson
would help that specific teacher. It makes the contact more personal and the teacher more likely
to want to participate. She said something very similar to what my last interviewee said about
encouraging teachers to use media services… once you have a good experience with a
teacher, that teacher is likely to spread the word to their close colleagues which will encourage
more people to take advantage of the services. Mrs Krengel likes to do collaborative lessons
that still incorporate the teacher so that they feel included. Usually she asks them to provide the
subject specific information either at the beginning or the end of the lesson while Mrs Krengel
provides the instruction for the program itself. She seems to do this fairly regularly so it sounds
like she’s done well with this method of cooperative learning.

Mrs Kregel struggled a bit with the concept of relating the media center to the schools reading
program because her school doesn’t really have a mandated reading program. She said that it’s
hard to enforce, create, or encourage a strong usage of the books amongst the students unless
there’s a real incentive for them to do so. She mentioned this year, because of covid, they’ve
used a program called “Beanstalk” to encourage kids to log their reading. It was apparently very
successful when the students were virtually learning but usage of the program has started
waning now that they are all back on campus. She tries to encourage reading as much as
possible with book advertisements in the school announcements. She has a specific display for
these books so kids who are interested can find them quickly and easily. She feels like she has
had a decent amount of success using this method of encouraging kids to read but it’s still hard
to see a major impact without a school driven reading program.

Mrs Krengel says that she doesn’t really do professional development in the tradition sense.
She doesn’t lead whole group sessions or anything because she doesn’t want to take anyone’s
planning time to teach them about a program that they might not use. We briefly discussed how
some teachers tend to put up a bit of a wall when professional development doesn’t interest or
apply to them which makes them hard to reach. Instead, she likes to do one on one or small
group, primarily voluntary, instruction that directly applies to and includes the teacher. These
teachers can request specific help but occasionally she will reach out to one or two on her own
to offer a specific training. She tried to keep the training sessions in close proximity to when the
program or teaching method will be used in the classroom so that the teacher has the fresh
details in mind to maximize the usefulness of their time.
For professional growth she really sang the praises of Cobb county’s district wide programs. For
example, she completed one on microsoft programs and she is currently in one all about
leadership. This leadership program will help her be a stronger leader within her own school
community but also in her network of other Cobb middle school media specialists. These district
specific courses help her network within her own area and develop a good group of people that
she can work with to develop new ideas or possibilities for her center. She also encouraged
looking to social media for groups of media specialists because they are often so willing to help
and share their lessons, ideas, and thoughts with other media specialists.

One of the things that has come out in her leadership course is the need for diversity
schoolwide. She uses Title Wave as well so she also has access to the beautiful statistics
offered by the program to see the breakdown of her catalogue. She realized quite quickly that
her school library was dominated by white authors and characters and has made it her mission
to start buying books with more diverse characters. She thinks it’s important that these books
are available and that the topics are more normalized. Books with “different” types of characters
are often the ones she features in her school announcement advertisements because she
wants the kids to know they exist. She also wants every kid to have equal access to her
collection so unlike many schools, she does not have any sort of system to weed out certain
books or subjects from certain grade levels. A 6th grader can access anything an 8th grader can
because her ultimate goal is to make sure that books get in eager hands. In this way, any child
can access any type of book or information that appeals to them at any given time. Whenever
the child feels uncomfortable with something in their chosen book, Mrs. Krengel is quick to
guide them through the process of selecting a new, more appropriate book.

I really enjoyed talking to Mrs. Kregel. She was very kind and enthusiastic about her job. I also
felt she was realistic about the kinds of challenges that I might face if and when I become a
media specialist. I feel like she’s a really good example of how to effectively collaborate with
teachers. I REALLY loved the idea about creating book advertisements or book trailers to go on
the morning announcements. A lot of times I hear kids complain that the announcements.
Combined with the display idea, I think that it would help kids find or get inspired to read
different kinds of books.