Monica Treptow
School Library Media Education Consultant at Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Hello, I am Monica Treptow, and I joined the Department of Resources for Libraries and Lifelong Learning in July as the new School Library Education Consultant. My first priority in this position is to be a resource for all information pertaining to school libraries for library media specialists throughout the state of Wisconsin. This includes answering questions regarding Common School Funds, Educator Effectiveness, and library planning and programming.
Similar to other education consultants at DPI, I come to my position with a wide variety of experience from the field. Most recently, I served in the Mequon-Thiensville School District as the District Research and Digital Learning Coordinator. This dynamic role allowed me to run an elementary school library, teach weekly scheduled classes to Kindergarten through fifth grade students, mentor and coach teachers, and participate on a number of district leadership teams. Prior to working at Mequon-Thiensville, I ran middle and high school library programming in the Port Washington-Saukville School District where I was also the leader in developing district information and technology plans. Before my career transitioned to libraries with a Master of Arts in Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, I spent my first ten years in education as a high school English teacher.
The many challenges and opportunities in the world of school libraries drew me toward this position. For years, school library positions have been eliminated, altered, or left vacant due to a shortage of qualified applicants. Although new licensing requirements and program guidelines make the current climate uncomfortable, I look forward to helping these changes bring forth new, capable and motivated educators to our field. This fall will also bring new standards from the American Association of School Librarians and new Wisconsin Information and Technology Standards, which will provide opportunities for leading new professional development to energize and bring more focused direction to our school librarians. In addition, as districts work through planning processes for information and technology aligned to the Wisconsin Digital Learning Plan, I will be providing resources for using the Future Ready Librarian framework to seamlessly integrate library planning and programming.
Communication is a key to making progress on these and other goals. I have initiated this process through updating the School Library webpage and participating in Google+ Communities and Twitter. I invite you to fill out the form for Wisconsin School Library Media Specialists linked on the website, send me an email, or follow me at +Monica Treptow or @WisDPISchLibs so I can learn more what is happening in your school library world.