Julie Edwards: Hello, everyone! We are going to get started in a few minutes. Here I'm Julie Edwards with Niche Academy.
Julie Edwards: but I just want to give you all some time to come in and get ready mit Ctl. And please feel free to hop over to the chat and say, Hello! Let us know where you're from. We do publish the Chat Transcript. So if you don't want to use the chat, you absolutely do not have to. But if you would like to say, Hi! And let us know where you are joining from.
Julie Edwards: I would welcome that as well.
Julie Edwards: Hello, Virginia! Coming in first, hey? North Carolina, Michigan. Hello! Oh, wow!
Julie Edwards: Hello, everybody!
Julie Edwards: Yeah. Everyone's joining. I can't even keep up a lot. See Indiana floating by a lot. Hey? Everybody! South Carolina! Hey? Michigan.
Julie Edwards: Pennsylvania, Georgia. Hello! Hello! Everyone so nice to see you all here, hey? Nashville? Hey! Massachusetts, Medford. hey? Carolina! Like Carolina, California. I have seen some Carolinas come through. But hey, Arizona!
Julie Edwards: So nice to see, hey? There's our Canadians. Hi, Montana!
Julie Edwards: It's normally where I'm joining you all from, but not today. I'm in Minneapolis today. Well, outside of Minneapolis today. Hi, Utah!
Julie Edwards: Hey! Pennsylvania! Feel free to to jump into the chat and say, Hi! As I was saying before, right when we started. We do publish the Chat Transcript, because we often in these webinars we have so many librarians in one room, so much great information goes back and forth
Julie Edwards: And so we'd like to save the chat. But if you don't want to use the chat, you certainly don't have to.
Julie Edwards: We are just at the top of the hour. Christina had to step away for a second, but I am thinking she's
Julie Edwards: coming back any time now we are going to get started here shortly. Hello, North Carolina!
Julie Edwards: More Canadians. Hi from New Jersey, a very homeschool, friendly state. Well, great! That's fantastic!
Julie Edwards: So excited to see so many of you here today.
Julie Edwards: Welcome, welcome! Or Arizonans.
Julie Edwards: Hello!
Julie Edwards: Lot of people from Indiana today.
Julie Edwards: Welcome everyone.
Julie Edwards: Hi, Wyoming! So nice to see you. So we are
Julie Edwards: just past the top of the hour.
Julie Edwards: We'll get started here in just a minute.
Julie Edwards: Hello! From Rural Tennessee. That sounds lovely.
Julie Edwards: more more New Jersey and New Jersey.
Julie Edwards: Hello, Indiana!
Julie Edwards: I see some of you recognizing each other. So nice.
Julie Edwards: so great to see everybody here today.
Julie Edwards: Welcome! Alright! We are going to go ahead and get started. So thank you for joining us today. My name is Julie Edwards, and I am a librarian and instructional designer with Niche Academy. Welcome to this webinar on library programs for home schoolers.
Julie Edwards: So I'd like to do a little bit of our standard housekeeping. Get everybody situated before we get started. Let me start by introducing Niche Academy. We are an easy to use all in one learning platform to help libraries create and deliver effective training and measure learners success.
Julie Edwards: So our platform is the perfect tool. If you're looking to increase your eresource usage move programming, including storytimes online, without the concern of violating copyright and deliver and track training for staff development.
Julie Edwards: If you're interested in finding out more about our platform chatting with a member of our team, learning what your colleagues and other libraries have to say, I'll drop a link to our website in the chat box and you can check us out and learn more.
Julie Edwards: We are recording this webinar, and I will make the recording, the slides, the Chat Transcript and the audio transcript available to everyone a few days after the presentation, so that will all be available on our blog. And I will email you as well with all of that information.
Julie Edwards: If you would like to turn on closed captioning. You're welcome to do that on your zoom screen. Please continue to chat with each other in the chat box, but if you have a crest question for Christina. Please put it in the question and answer box we are already close to 500 people in here, and so questions for the presenter will get lost in the chat. I can't keep up with them, so please put them in the QA. Box, and I will do my best to moderate questions at the end of the Webinar.
Julie Edwards: This Webinar series is part of our commitment to solving bigger problems together and providing continuing education in the library world. I'm so happy you've joined us all today, and I will put a link to our upcoming free webinars in the blog. I'm sorry in the chat so that you can check those out as well.
Julie Edwards: So I'd like to welcome back Christina Giovannelli Caputo she presented for us earlier this year, giving some basics on the history of home schooling. She's gonna take a deep dive in today to programming that you can implement in your libraries. She is the author of library services to home schoolers, a guide and founder of all learners. Welcome.
Julie Edwards: She has over 20 years of experience in education and librarianship, and has paved the way for equitable and inclusive services in library arena. Her advocacy has united administration libraries and school districts to work cohesively across the nation to support schooling diversity.
Julie Edwards: Currently she is the Knowledge services manager of forefront and Illinois nonprofit and grant maker, Statewide Association. She's also a mom to 4 and an advocate for youth everywhere. I am so happy to welcome her back. Thank you for joining us, Christina.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Hello, everyone. Good afternoon, Julie. Thank you. Thank you for such a warm welcome. I am so
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: so pleased to be here with you today, and completely honored, and just so excited to share. Some of what I've done, and to continue this conversation about serving homeschoolers in our communities.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So let's consider it.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I'm I am author of library services to home school or guide is Julie said. I've been a librarian for close to 20 years. I currently am, and a Knowledge services manager at forefront, and we are Statewide Association.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: which is extremely, extremely important.
and so
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I am a mom. I have homeschooled, my children, my, so children are, and
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: public school. We have a variety. Different experiences happening here at our house, and I'm really excited to share so much of what I've done with all of you.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Oh, hello!
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So today, what we're going to be talking it about is programs and services. We had done a deep dive into historical aspects of education, and if you are not aware
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: of the educational system that has occurred here in in America. It is very, very. I find it very interesting. You may, too. That is in my book. It's very important for us to know as librarians, especially
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: as libraries are an extension of
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: the school system here in America. That's how we've been set up right for us to know the history, and to know, to have a little glimpse into
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: what our community is choosing to do, and it helps us foster understanding within our community, too.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So if you're not aware of the history of education, I encourage you to learn about it and read about it. But
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: programs and services
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: libraries play an essential role in providing free and accessible educational resources. And as we see the number of home schoolers growing so that they're gonna they are continuing to grow. It's imperative that we are responsive, intentional, and thoughtful, and how we provide accessible, supportive resources.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And it is so so vital for libraries to ensure that all learners are welcome in our spaces.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So
I have a reflection question for you.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and you don't have to share. You don't have to. It's just for internal thinking about our
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: all learners. Welcome in your library.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I'm thinking about how your library is serving them and how you're meeting their informational need. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: but homeschooling longevity in America it has been home school has been around since the first child is born to the first parent. That's we explore the last time that is in my book, too. And for us to know it's imperative for us to foster understanding in our communities. And to begin to foster these conversations. But home schooling was not always legal. And so these are things that we.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: my goodness, why is it I'm clicking on the wrong button. My mouse is goofy this week, everybody. So I apologize. I was having some issues
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: here in America, and this is really important for us to know as librarians, especially if you're frontline staff frontline staff that I'm gonna refer to as librarians that are working on a service desk or engage with the public.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Knowing your homeschool legalities is going to be very important, and since home schooling is legal in America, you may receive that question because I've received that question.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: but it wasn't always legal. It wasn't until 1,993 that all of our States have accepted homeschooling and have had homeschooling as legal
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: but for us as frontline librarians who are d, who's serving the public who are dealing with public to know where the home school to refer people to right to have these resources available for us to know where they are.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: That's going to be very important. So if you're on the service desk and a patron or library user comes up to you and asked if homeschooling is legal.
Yes, it is. However, there's not a
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: oversight and regulation that is going to be the same for every State in America. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: you have to know which
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: State regulation applies to your patron?
And so, since it varies from state to state, it's important for us to know some information so
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: homeschool Legal Defense Association. This is an association that you can refer patrons to when they're looking for legalities and legality information and legal information.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: We don't wanna interpret the laws and home schooling laws for our library users, because we don't wanna ever have the library be at risk, for, you know, liable for anything that is misconstrued or misunderstood. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: just we provide the information right? So no Legal Defense Association, Homeschool League of the Fence Association. The same information can be found at time for learning, and then the State Board of Education so essentially what I'm saying for our staff to know where to find this information and where to direct your patrons. Home School, Legal Defense Association is really great because it has an interactive math.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So this is where this graphic is from.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: because in United States our education system for homeschooling varies by state to state. So one State may be a high regulation regulation state where there's a lot of regulations for homeschool families, or they may have a low regulation state.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: which will be like, I am in Illinois, and this is a low regulation state here, where you do not need to register your child? And everything is dependent and varies by state. So that's really important for you to know
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: where to find this information.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Now we see that there's a question, Julie, in that. It just popped up.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Are we doing questions during the presentation, or at the end it'd be great to save them for the end, just so that we can be sure to get through the presentation perfect.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Another thing I want to note for you when we share legal information. That's why I always
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: home Schooling of Defense Association. If you're not familiar, it is historically been a Christian Association. but there are lawyers that are on staff and families can become members. I think it's like a hundred 30, some dollars per year, and then they would have legal representation for the entire year. So it's an association of membership.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I refer families. And just regardless. If, say, this is where this information is, you can contact them for any of your legal questions. Disclaimer, you know we are not.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: We're not liable for this information. So if you put this on your website, which I'm going to show you put a disclaimer on there just to protect yourself and your library.
So.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: knowing where the legalities are, that's gonna be very important and knowing home schooling numbers. That's going to be important, too, especially when we begin to think about programming for our home school population.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And it can be hard to think about, you know.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: beginning to program, because there's steps that have to begin before you begin to even think about programming. And we're gonna review those, too. But part of it is knowing who your community is, and knowing that these numbers in homeschooling are continuing to rise, they started rising before Covid. But when Covid happened in 2020, the numbers just exploded, and it is now, according to us, census
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: that there are 11% of all school-aged children being schooled from home in some capacity. but it is really hard for us to have a hard and fast number, because, though regulation States people not declaring if they're home schooling. There's so many different factors that come into play. So this is still just an estimate of the percentage.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And it also is for compulsory aid. Students like we don't know if they're under a certain age, right? If it's a high regulation state, if they would need to declare it. So all of this information kind of comes into play. But this is just a generalized number. So we're just gonna use that through the Us census 11. But these numbers are consistently being on the rise.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and so
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: we use that.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And I'll tell you when we'll use it. But library to do. We have to do things internally in our library in order to begin to serve home schoolers now.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and that comes for
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: any population or any audience that we begin to assert right?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: There's certain practices that we have to do so, making sure that you're following ones that have been instituted by your library. and we have to have this support through our organization.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And that would mean.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: perhaps, if you need to have a case for support. I'm not sure how your library works. But when it was at my library I needed to create at my library a couple of couple libraries ago, when I first started doing this I had. I had a case for support like, why was I wanting to expand this service to the homeschoolers, and why this is so needed within our community.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and how all of this happened for me was I so inherited serving homeschoolers? I had a home school program, and I was a former teacher.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: a bunch of home squares came, and I didn't know where to go from there, and I failed miserably at first, and I felt
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: so lost because I was a teacher. I had gone through public school,
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and I was looking for support of my professional community and help, and how to institute these practices. And it was it? It was hard. It was really hard in the beginning, and so I began to research and advise for Voigga and I began to do all these different things, and so
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: telling you this because I want you to know that you are not alone. I'm here completely to support you, and I'm only an email or a phone call way. So if you get stuck or you feel like, Oh, my gosh! What do we do next? All you have to do is send me a message and it can help you. Okay, that's just number one.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: But number 2, when it comes to library to do talking with your administration, find out what what it is like. If you have to check with your strategic plan, or whatever it is that you need to check with internally as an organization in order to move forward. If you need to have a case for support, what you can lean on is looking at the library code of ethics, looking at the you also, and else competencies that say that we serve everyone in our community
looking at
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: the rising numbers, right learning about your community. All these different things that you can do that would need to be put into practice. If you're doing a case for support. So that may be something on the internal side.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and this is also when you're doing this ensuring why you need to support this growing population. And
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: you may hear. Well, why would we need to do this right? I know I heard it. Why would we need to expand the service when we have award winning school district here, so on and so forth. Well, because we
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: there's not a one size fits all approach for education, and that is the bottom line. We have a certain percentage in our community that is doing this, this XY, and Z right, 11% that the census and numbers are saying that are being home schooled. And this is why we need to do it, because not everyone is the same.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: this is something that is an internal thing, but
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: thinking about what you would need to do next, right? Like you have the approval you're ready to move forward.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: What do you need in order to create a home school program. And this is, I'm going like bare bones, right like going back originally the beginning, what you need to do. And so
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: before you establish a full homeschool program you're going to. You may have to experiment a little bit, and I wish I had all of the answers, and that there was a blanket program that I could say, this is what you need to do, and this is going to be successful. But
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: it doesn't work that way just because there isn't a one sized foot cell approach to education. There's not a one sized foot cell approach to programming. And that's only because
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: we're all different. There's schooling diversity. We're diverse people. Our communities are different. And so many different things. But these are things that worked for me, and I hope that they'll work for you, and if they don't, that's okay. I'm here to support you throughout your whole process, and all you need to do is send me a message, and we'll figure out a way that you can serve them. Okay.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: the out and outreach
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: is.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: you are currently serving your home school population. You feel comfortable. Please feel free to say so in chat like, if you feel like you're a beginner in us, or you don't have a program established. You can please share, or if you do, you're you know, mid. Or if you're in advance, please feel free to share there.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: because I'm going back to like the absolute beginning of what you need to do.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So bear with me while we do that. If you are more of an advanced home schooler, or home school programmer. But
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: when we think about serving our community
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and we have the case for support, we have the research behind us. That's backing. Why, we need to serve a home school population or schooling diversity or alternative education methods. That's some of the terms that I'll use when they describe. It's having this clear goal. And one of the first goals is you have to reach your community right? But that's easy, easier said than done. I can say, oh, connect with your community, go out to them, do this.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: but how do you find them?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: go to social media.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Look through social media, look and see if there's any homeschool groups that are local. If you've had a homeschool program in the past, you can connect with some of your library patrons that way and invite them to a next program, or invite them to connect
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: social media, seeing if there's any homeschool groups in your community. There's certain lists that will websites that will have information about local homeschooling groups that I can help you connect with. And then, you know, you can send a message to those groups and Co. Ops in that way. Looking at the different methodologies that perhaps are instituted within your community.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and all of this can be done because you need to go to them
if they're not coming into the library
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: is what I'm pretty much saying
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: so. The out in outreach there is a tool, a workbook from Ala. It's called communities have challenges. Libraries can help a step-by-step guide turning outward to your community.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: This is gonna help you. If you know, you need additional support or tips on how to continue to look outward toward your community. And this isn't just for a schooling community, but just in general.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I found that it was really helpful to me. But thinking beyond just what we house in the actual library, like, we can have a homeschool program in the library. But if no one comes, what's the impact?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: It's not so great. So we need to at times meet our communities where they are. And we know that we're librarians. That's what we do. And so finding
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: homeschool groups is going to be really important. and that's just one way I did. It was through social media.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I saw that there was a home schooling group. It was like a mile or so from the library, and where I was serving at the time, and they weren't coming in to the library for my homeschool programming, right? And this is right when I first started.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and I couldn't understand why
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: so my kids were small, small enough. They were little, and I had saw on their social media. Or
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: maybe I sent them a message asking if I could come. I can't remember, because this is so long ago, but
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: it's it. I had reached out in some capacity, whether I looked at their social media or I sent them an email and they were having just like a drop in
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Park Day, and so I brought my kids to the Park, and I went there and I had my.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I had business cards that I passed out. I had flyers and my kids played, and I talked. I mean, understand that that may not work for everybody completely understand?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: but it was making myself approachable and being flexible to what their needs were when I had
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: saw that they were having a park day. Why aren't they coming into the library? They're right here. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I showed up and I brought. I brought swag. I brought crafts. Whatever I had on hand that was easy. Just that I could grab, throw the bag
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and to begin to connect with this population right? It's beginning to foster these connections and and understand what each community needs. And so that is one way that I did the out and outreach and I would continue throughout the course of when I was building. This program was to be out in the community where the community saw me.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And so that was really important. It was just. It was important for my community
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: educated card.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Do you have an educator card? Do you have educator cards in general at your library? And if you do, fabulous, do you have educator cards for your home schooled educators?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And if you don't. how come you know? And thinking about that there.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: while a teacher in a school.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: perhaps as a certified teacher? The home school teachers are teachers, too, and so they need the support of the public Library just as much. if not more. Home schooling can be very, very, very expensive, and one of the surveys that had come out. I think it was at the National Center for Educational Statistics. It said 79% or so of homeschool families of public library.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And that's that's a lot 79%. But home schooling is very, very expensive. So if
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: families value us, and we should, you know, value them back. Let's give them the extra privileges that we allow for our educators. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: if you're wondering what that would look like
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: New Yorkup Library has a really nice web page to check out to see what that looks like for their system, and so that may be of interest to you and your library system.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So I should tell you as well.
I had put these
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: icons here is trying to be fancy for all of you. This is an arrow with the for the bullseye. So this is showing that it's going to be an impact. So you'll see these on some of the present, some of the slides further on, and I'll explain them. But this just means that it's going to have a really great impact. And it's going to be very impactful when it comes to our home schooling communities.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Your website, what's your website look like? Does it welcoming to home schoolers. Does it acknowledge home schoolers? Does it say that you have services for home schoolers or programs?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And if it doesn't, that's okay. It may put, perhaps maybe add a little a little verbiage on there, saying that you do this is something that I crafted that says just so. And so. Library welcomes all diverse learners and supports home schooling families on and during their educational journey through a variety of services, materials, and programmes.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Yeah, boom done. It doesn't have to be a big, long thing, it can it? Can. You can have an entire website dedicated to it? Orland Park. Public Library has a home schooling web page. That's beautiful
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: if you're looking for an example. But you don't have to have it that way when you're starting to build your program
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: but having some sort of message out there that homeschoolers are welcome, I think, is going to really help when you're beginning to become. It's going to help you when you begin to build your program.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and if you have an established program there, set up fabulous but making sure that that's also stated stated on your on your website. So when you begin to think about homeschool website.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: for home schooling information on your library website, what should you include? Well, as we said, the State laws on home school, on home schooling. Right? That's gonna be really important, because you can direct your patrons to your website. And I can just have, like a list. Boom, boom! Boom! The Board of Education, local or State homeschooling groups, Home School, your Defense Association and a disclaimer.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: But I do love a good disclaimer. We can have home schooling resources, and this can be web-based. It can be library based. It can be your databases. It can. If you have an area on your website that is for schooling resources, right? Like teacher resources.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And it can be good to go right. Have another little blurb about where State laws are. This does not need to be a huge undertaking.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: It can be a bigger as level as you want, but schooling methods because there's a variety different home school methods that are out there. You could have upcoming programs that are for home schoolers as you begin to build your program.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: or you can just have a home schooling link home the program link to your program calendar, home schooling field trip, information that would come into the library.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: but this also could be used when you're doing the schooling websites. Your schooling information for your library. If you have home, if you have field trip information about how schools can come into the library for field trips
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: include homeschool in there.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Pike's Peak Library district has a home school hub, which is really great, too. So if you're looking for some websites to check out, check out the Orland Park, and then the Pikes Peak. Those are really great ones to look at as examples of some fabulous, in my opinion, fabulous websites. But
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: one thing that I really really like is an open survey. So having an open and continuous open cycle survey on your website, your homeschool area
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: that just is asking your community what they need and how the library can help right and so Campbell County Public Library has a nice home schooling survey that is continuous and same thing with Plymouth, Plymouth Public library homeschooling survey. So those are 2 examples of
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: libraries that have this continuous cycle.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So I recommend those just as a
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: as an example.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: if
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and when you're beginning your program, you have approval to do one program
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: like your administration says you have. You know you can do one program. I recommend
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: a homeschool hangout program.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: But what is going to create the most impact
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: for you is going to be your home school advisory team.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: But this is the home. It's an advisory team. So it's an advisory board. So, depending on how your logistics work for your for your library, right like, I don't know if that would be considered a program or not. But this is gonna be the most impactful, especially when you're beginning, because it's going to give you insight into what your community needs.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: That is specific and special to your community. So the Homeschool advisory team and I have it. Event description. That's here, the
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: the coding that I coding. But the lip book key that I have down here. So when it's an arrow with a money sign that's pointing down. That means it's not gonna cost too much.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: This is going to be like the lift right, the library left. Here. The arrow going up
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: is going to be the impact. And then, if it has like a screen like this, it can be virtual, or if it has a person, it can be in person. So anyway, homes advisory team. It doesn't cost much.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: The lift is not that much, because you're really just gonna be having a conversation. Maybe you'll have some cookies if you have it in person. The impact is, gonna be great and you can do it virtual or in person.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So this is going to be for parents or for the caregiver, for the home school teacher, building a home school advisory team is going to be imperative because it's going to help. You know who you need to serve what type of methods are being instituted in your community or used in practice? It's going to tell you who is in your community. It's going to be enlisting the caregivers and Te teachers. And that's going to help you create a pathway forward in order to
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: plan what type of programming that you can offer, or that would be beneficial for your community. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: homeschool advisory team is something that I say, when you're building a program, you need to have a home school advisory team. Have you ever had a program? And nobody came.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: But you spent all this time making this beautiful program. Not one person came
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: because it's happening, and it stinks right. And it just. It's sad, for you know the presenter. But then the time it took and it just was a complete waste and it could be that
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: for me when I did it, I wasn't meeting the community's needs. So thinking about what your community needs is going to create that great impact
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: enlisting. The people who are homeschooling is going to help you do so
now.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: the program, the one program you're going to want to have. You only can do one program. It's going to be a homeschool hangout program.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And this is because this is going to be for a wide range of ages. Now the cost it's gonna be depending on. If you've ever had home school programming or any sort of home school anything before, right and what you have on hand at the library. So that's dependent the lift. It could be great at the beginning, because it depends on again what you've done what you wanna do and what your community needs impact is gonna be super high. And I recommend doing this in program, because that's how you're going to meet your community. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: this is going to be for a variety of different ages, and I've had it where it is from preschoolers
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: through 18 year olds seniors in high school, and then their siblings and so having a variety of different stations, is something that worked for me.
and it was a drop in program. I would have it open for 2 h in the beginning.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and I don't remember if I shared this with you at the last session, but I failed so miserably. I tied it. I was a teacher. I tied it to the curriculum, like the State curriculum here in Illinois.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and the parents came in. I had this this program set up with it was pumpkins, and we were looking at is Halloween. We were gonna look at the pumpkins and pull out all the pulp from the pumpkins, which was super fun. But I had it tied to each standard right, and I had worksheets, and this and that.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and they came in and know, like, what the heck is. This like? This is not what we want, and that's an example of me, not knowing the community and not meeting what their needs were and completely feeling. And that's okay, because it helped me become better at what I needed to do and to fit their need. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: that's why homeschool advisory team is so darn important. But
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: home school hangout can be whatever you want it to be just as long as it's going to fit a variety of different ages. And so drop in program have hands on activities. Eventually, when I had grown my program, and I had, you know, with parents and learned about what they were doing in their home schools and within their co-ops. We started doing it by theme. But I love a theme. So I mean, that's where I'm gonna always go to. I would do it in one of my favorite ones as we would do org on trail. Now I'm a travel at the eighties, and
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: when I was in elementary school they came out with work on trail game on the computer. And it was so fun. And so I don't know how we started talking about it. Maybe they were talking about history or something and it came up that we should do an work on trail
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: unit and in homeschool hangout.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and it was one of my favorites because we did. We played the work on trail game, right? So that would be, we had that up on the computer stations. We had a stem activity where kids could make a wagon, and it could hold a certain amount of whatever you know. Wait! And then we had a craft
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: where
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: that they could make the people, I think, to go in it. We did a
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: craft snack so they could. They built a snack out of well, they built a wagon out of a twinkie and a cookie and
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I think some frosting so they wouldn't literally make like a little a little wagon that they could eat, and we had board games, and then I had resources and books and tie-ins to learning
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: but making it completely fun and relevant to what their needs were.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So I think you know, homeschool hangouts gonna be important, whatever whatever you decide to follow home, school hub homes. But whatever, if you just
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: your name but it's having it. A little bit more low. Key drop in.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: But again, that's going to be dependent on what your community seats are.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Collection home school audit. This is something that I did when I began growing. Our program is thinking about what resources that we had within our collection. Now. again, the cost depending on what you have
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: not saying. You have to go buy box curriculums. by any means.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: but thinking about what we have in our collections, and being intentional when we are purchasing new items, knowing what our community's needs are, and referring back to the homeschooling community, too, to see what what they need and what their hopes are right, what they're doing. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: the impact is gonna be really great for us. Because, as we saw from that survey, 79% of the home school population uses the library so heavily and so having the information available and for circulation is gonna be really important, and making sure that we're intentional on what we are providing, too.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So we also know that representation matters. And so, having items and books in our collection that are represent that the home school students can see themselves in right, and they can relate to. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: there are various books out there that picture books and chapter books
and that have homeschool characters so ensuring that those are in your collection
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: would be really really great, too.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And then thinking. when you're doing your homeschool audit, and you can call it whatever it's
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: collection management, collection development, right thinking about what methods are being instituted in your community. And this can come from
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: through your home school advisory team. It can come through your open survey. If you have that up on the website, it can come from asking your community when they come to your home school hangout or home school programs. That's how I started doing mine just asking what they're doing. What curriculum are you using, because there's such different variety, there is not a one size fits all approach. There's so many different types of homeschooling methods. And then there's they're all woven together or not, and
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: it's going to be just depending on your community. But there are some staples that I recommend having. And so we dived into some of them in our last presentation, and in my book we talked about. There's John Holt with unschooling looking at the classical home schooling methods, thinking about Doctor Raymond Moore.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: so there's so many that we can go into but looking at what your community has and needs, and making sure it's representative represented in your collection, also having different periodicals, too, that home schooling magazines can be really helpful as well for our families. And I think
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: 2
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: thinking, do you want to do curriculum?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Do you want to? Just, you know, have resources thinking about what you do want to have, whether it's long, term short term anywhere in between what you'd like to have. Do you want to do box curriculum? So those are very expensive, not saying you have to do it cause you don't. I didn't do it. I had resources, and I would create resource lists and
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: variety of different information that would be available when when home squares would either come up to the service desk or we could direct families to when they were beginning to look for information. Right? So I knew that classical conversations was big in our community. That's just one. It was a Co. OP. That was a large Co. OP. At the time that was being practiced in classical conversations
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: is a home schooling group Co-OP method that would use a half a hundred acre Woods book lists within their breeding cycles.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So I knew that they were using these. And so I created book lists on our website for
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Classical Conversation cycle, one classical conversation cycle, 2. Whatever books I would cross reference. I had the list of what they were using, looking in my collection and creating lists. So then they would go to their book list, and then they could see, and it would populate whatever items we had in our collection that were going to be available for that cycle just trying to make it accessible and have
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: an ease of use when using her resources.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Johnsburg Public Library has a Home School Resources center, which is amazing. And if you're thinking you'd like to have vox curriculums and really have a more in depth
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: collection development when it comes to homeschooling resources. II recommend Johnsburg public library for that, just to look at and see
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: what is available and what they do
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: when you're doing collection development. And you're looking through
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: like, what is, you're gonna withdraw some items. If they're in good condition, keep them because those can be used for giveaways, whether you can create, you know, like a little button. If you have a button, may here that says, like home school reader, whatever you wanna coin a term or you have a sticker maker, and you can put a sticker on it, you know, withdrawn.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: you know you do your withdrawn stamp. But then
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: from XY and Z. Library for homeschool readers or something, you know some sort of promotion. And when you go out into the community you can hand out these withdrawn items or arcs, or whatever crafts that you have.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: that.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Well, kids like freebies, right? My kids look freebies. And so whenever I would come with my box of whatever whatever I had, the kids would go crazy. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: if you can.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and they're in good condition, why not just hand it up
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: library basics. The live Public library
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: is going to be the home school or school librarian. The likelihood is. Now.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: it's not gonna be a hundred percent right? Cause I am a librarian and I home school, my kids?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: so that wasn't the case for them, but for the majority, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the majority in the likelihood is parents homeschooling with children may not be librarians and so offering information literacy.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: library skills, how to use the library library basics that some things that would be an enrichment type of class that is offered into the school system.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and offering them through for your home school friends. You can celebrate this on National Library on day 2, which is an April sixteenth. Lift, is not going to be very great, because these are things we do
on the day to day, you know, if we have an outreach event that's coming through, and our Girl Scout Troop of wants to come see the library and see how it works. Often times that we do this. At least we did this on my past library, so offering the same
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: type of programming. But we're just offering it to a different audience. In a different time. So best for in person it'll have a nice impact. It's not a heavy lift, and it doesn't cost much. If you have a book. Mobile bookmals are super cool to look at. Kids think they're cool. I mean, I think they're cool. So maybe take him on a bookmobile tour. We did that I did behind the scenes library tour, because it's really neat for kids to see how books
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: are processed and how they're checked out, and all the inner workings of the library. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: library basics is going to be a great one.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Let's see Homeschool Book Club. This is one that I automatically when they said, Oh, you're gonna serve the homeschool population. I automatically turned to like, Oh, we'll just do a Homeschool book club. Well, when I got to know the homeschool community,
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: parents were like, we don't want a home school club, and this is just for my my community at the time.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: they they're like we read all the time. My, the kids are always reading. They don't necessarily want a traditional book club.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And so I started thinking, outside of the box, like, what else can we do?
So thinking beyond the traditional is something that worked for me books to movie thinking about. We did desserts, books, and more an intergenerational book club. So where it was
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: with a elder. And then the child and there'd be desserts in a book discussion, repurpose book. You can have the withdrawn items and making crafts from those
A readers theater from print to play thinking about public speaking, and how that comes into practice for home schoolers,
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and book sets that you can circulate right that they can have and take back with them to their Co. Ops. I should say. this again is going to be depending on your home school community that you have within
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: within your library. You may have large co-ops. You may have just single families that are homeschooling, and they work as
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: as a group. There may be micro schools. So it's going to be also depending on what's going to be
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: benefiting to your community. And that's why the Homes Advisory team is going to be so important.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And I'm thinking, beyond the traditional sets that you circulate. We have stem kits. Do you have stem kits that you can circulate? And if so, for home schoolers. And what's educator cart? Can they have a longer checkout?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Do you have technology sets or ukulele sets that can be circulated and used 6 stands. We had a homeschool band that was near one of my libraries. So thinking about how and what materials could be useful.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: that perhaps are expensive. That may be something that we can circulate to help support their education. Again, this is depending on what you have in your collection, and what you've done in the past
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: for the cost, the lift. It's hard to say right? Because there's so many different ideas on here. Impact is going to be great, especially if you're just starting off with any of this.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and best to do these in person. And so
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: again, it's all going to be depending on what you have in your curve and in your collection, and what you've done before. Anything that you've done
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: that you say have done after school.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: You don't need to reinvent the wheel, and it was a successful program, and it was cool. Offer it during the day and just homeschool homeschool.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: You know, baking club or homeschool. XY. And Z. It, you can use what you've done for
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: as an after-school program and put it during the day
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and coin it as a homeschool program that is completely completely appropriate.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: at least in my book. And I've been doing this long time.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: So my gone to the home schoolers, and I'm like, Oh, you wanna do a home school book club, or what do you wanna do? And that one parents were like, well, we'd rather have this. And then one kid had said, Well, no, I really wanna do like a home school movie day.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Do we have to do a book. Can we do a home school? Can we do a movie discussion group?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: It's like, Yeah, that's a genius idea. Because it was
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: easy, like on me. We pop a movie in. We pick a movie and we discuss it. Have a snack. It's super fun.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And it didn't require a great list by me, and it was building this camaraderie and rapport within the home schooling community that I was listening to their needs, hearing what they had to say
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and we can do fun stuff. So I showed movies during the school day, like, I don't know from one to 3 we can. If you have a popcorn machine. Great, if not migrate. Popcorn is is okay, too, or you know, bag popcorn, that's cool
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and invite your home schoolers to have a home school movie and see how it goes. The cost is, gonna be low. The
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: lyft is not much because you're it's not really that much that goes into showing a movie unless you decide you want to get wild and have an interactive movie. But
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: for the most part, this is just mainly to have fun
homeschool battle of the books. Now this is going to be a really great lift, big lift on the side of the librarian. But
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: one of my favorite things that
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I can remember was battle of the books and so offering this, that is something that is so. It was traditionally held within
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: a traditional school. Having an event is it could be really impactful? Right? So I've had families that had asked for a geography be.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and for a spelling bee. I did a rock the vote which was really really neat, because again.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: our homeschooling students didn't have information. Literacy that the public school student would have because they didn't have a library, perhaps in their home school. So rock the vote. What I did is I used our State reading list the award winning list. So here in Illinois it's the blues and the monarch and the cuddle, and we read them, and then we voted on which one is going to be favorite, and then we could submit it. Now I had a voting booth that I made out of a cardboard box. I mean. It was all meant in good fun. But
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: just to get the kids excited. And
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I mean as a mom, I love seeing my kids excited. So that was something that II do recommend.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: If you're wanting to begin a program. That was. that was a lot of fun
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: homeschool lunch bunch, with or without recess homeschool lunch. Bunch was super fun.
easy, very, very cost. Effective. Because you didn't have to do anything on the library end except host to room
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: thinking about what our home schoolers, if they are individual
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: family schooling from home right?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: They don't have that lunch experience that some of the traditionally school kids may have so offering that in the library. And this is really just a room with a table. You can have events, and you can have
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: crafts and activities that can coincide with it, but essentially just offering
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: a lunchtime and eat together and to learn and have fun.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: no cost. It can be really high impact
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and recess. What kid doesn't love recess? And so you can. If you have a park that's near you, you could have a lunch bunch in a recess. This would have
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: it it could you know, it can be really, really fun. We had a lot of fun at hours when we did it.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And when I started bringing in programs that didn't cost a lot of money, I was able to expand our services a whole lot more, too.
Julie Edwards: Christina. This is Julie. I just want to give a quick time check. We've got about 12 min left
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: perfect. Alright.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: so we can do not so back to school homeschool bash. So have a party. Not so back to school, right like. But it's fun. We're celebrating it. We're bringing people into the library. We're having fun with what we we do.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and so you can do this with the Dj. You can do it as big or as little as you want but kicking off the home school year, and you can do this with the home school hangout. This doesn't have to be. It can be standalone, or you can have it with another program, right? As one of the themes. And so
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: this will have a big impact, because new home schoolers in your community may come, and I would recommend having this. you know, mid early September.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: New homeschoolers and your community may come. Get to meet
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: new
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: families that are schooling from home for that school year, and then they get to meet other people, too, at the Community
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: home, school, field day, or gym class.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: my favorite. And when you think about what was my favorite thing. Being in elementary school was field day. I felt there was so much fun. I mean, that was just my personal one. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I really wanted to do a field day or home school field day, where, you know, there'd be the different activities outside. There'd be the different teams. And so this is something that can be really great when you're thinking about collaborating, collaborating within your local park district or force preserve thinking if there's something that you know you can do together.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: what type of fun activity you can do.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I had homeschoolers ask for gym classes. That was a major.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Ask they were looking for more enrichment type nest necessarily tied to the to, you know, state curriculum. As I said before, not as much academic, but they were looking for enrichment, and so gym classes were something that were brought up quite a bit. So, thinking about being a partner with the park district on Yoga classes or
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: gym time over at the Park district. Like open gym is what I'm referring to, and so this gives time for collaboration and also to create an impact
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: homeschool. Olympics is something that I was thinking about. You can do the reading Olympics right where you're reading. It's like all of the books you're reading these books to get to the end goal or earning a badge, and then you can challenge each other with
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: your knowledge on the books, or you can also have actual homeschool Olympics that could be similar to a field day.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: it's just a really great learning opportunity about the history of Olympics. And it's super fun. So that's another one.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Other programs you can do or show and tell thinking about public speaking, thinking
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: ice cream social.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: You can make the ice cream doing crafts and an art show students that want to display their art. May not have a chance to do so in a home school setting. So offering the space in the library is going to be is going to be imperative.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: depending on what is represented in your community. If you have a very large nature home schooling group, you may want to have nature walks and park crawls.
If you have
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: unschoolers, or whoever you know, knowing your community is going to help create these pathways for the programming that you're gonna have. So
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: local history enlisting your Historical Society, or your forest preserves having adventure clubs or stem programming or Lego masters, so offering these different program things and offering them during a day offered, or this during the school day.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And if you can offer them twice, right like after after school hours, and then offer them before South Homeschool High School graduation number.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: offering a place for your home schoolers to have their graduation, whether it be Groups and Co. Ops or families that home school and having that chance to walk across the stage having a snack or having a traditional graduation can be something that you know you can do
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: again. The cost wouldn't be so great if it's the graduation, because it's just the room could have a high impact and best to do in person. There have been unprom's done, or
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: like zombie proms. I can't think of what the name of one was that I had heard, but offering a prom doing a dance, having it in your big programming round. Can be really great for high schoolers
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: recording a song in 90 min is one that we had done. It was a program that we had done at my library for adults, and we pivoted it, and we had offered it for teens.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and we offered it during the school day
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: for parents offering a home school one on one program, learning about what home schooling is in your community. homeschool parents night out. You want to ensure that the parents have the support that they need in order to be successful so that can be done throughout showing and showcasing resources specifically at home, school parents or caregivers or educators.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: talking about what databases we have, what resources we have, what is in the curriculum that would tie to theirs. I mean what is in our collection that ties to their curriculum, and then how to homeschool transcripts. So these are how to create holes. Home school transcripts for
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: high schoolers, and so there is at the bottom.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I have a black line over mine, so I can't really see, but I think it. Kathy once is a really great consultant for this. If you'd like to have a speaker come and talk about how to do these for your parents, she's really great. And then there's another Home School Association, just an example of what to offer.
So questions.
Julie Edwards: Thank you so much, Christina. Wow! We've had a ton of questions come in. But first I would. I just want to thank you for all your expertise, your generosity, and sharing this information.
Julie Edwards: there are is, and there's so much good information in the chat as well. People are saying this was awesome, awesome, awesome. So great. We've had so many questions come in, and the one that we've seemed to have gotten the most is, how, in your opinion, would you explain how these programs are different for what makes this different for home schoolers than for just a standard library program for youth. And why not just invite home schoolers to other library programs for youth.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Well, you can absolutely and I completely completely invite
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: homeschoolers to the problems for you. But
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: what makes it special is you have to know your community in order to serve and be effective as a library. Knowing who your community is is going to help, you have the programs is gonna meet their informational need. Right? That's one of the our goals. And so when you know who your community is, you can provide the services in order to support them. So yes, absolutely invite home schoolers to programs that are the general programs that are after school programs.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: but I guess my question is why.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: why I'm not.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Why not offer them?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: For you know, to home schoolers, too, like well, why do we have to
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: have
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: so? Can you ask it to me again. Because I know I'm being super weird and awkward and going to overthink this question to death.
Julie Edwards: Yeah, no. Why offer separate programs for home schoolers. Why, recycle programs that you're already doing specifically for home schoolers. Wh, why not just invite them into standard library programs?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Bye.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I don't wanna even say it's a recycle if if you offered it a couple of years ago, and you knew that it's a successful program, and you know that you want to expand your services
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: you need. You can use that program. There's no need to reinvent the wheel if you want to reinvent the wheel. That's great. But if you don't have the bandwidth to you, you know you, you
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: use one that you've already done
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And why have a specific program for homeschoolers? Because there's 11%, if not more, in your community that need that need the support of the library.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and so with, there isn't just a one. Size fits all approach, and something that may be great, for
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: for one person isn't going to fit the needs of the other one. So I think it's just being aware of who's in our community, knowing that
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: we are there to support all learners, not just ones in public school or private school or homeschool. It's to fit the needs of everyone, and just making sure that we're being
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: aware of that and trying to do so. Does that answer your question?
Julie Edwards: I think so. And there's also a lot of great information coming in the chat from other librarians about, you know, using this as a form of outreach. Knowing this community and realizing that they prefer programs during the day, and it works better with their schedule. So lots of great stuff in the chat, which is probably a great time for me to remind you all that I will be sharing the Chat Transcript, the recording and Christina's slides in a few days, so you'll have access to all of this information.
Julie Edwards: Several people have also asked, and we only have a couple of minutes left. So this this may be too complex of a question. But I'm I'm gonna send it over to you and see if we can just quickly address it, that
Julie Edwards: some libraries are in rural and conservative areas. People use the library, but don't necessarily want the library's involvement, and may be also involved in groups to ban books and libraries. Do you have any advice.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: You know this is something I've thought a lot about when it comes to it, so I will tell you that the homeschooling numbers. diverse diversely, are growing. I think the number was 16. Of all homeschoolers are African Americans.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: at that. From that one number that is seen the increase there. There's some very large numbers that the historically represented
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: home schooling population. The how about this? The shift in homeschoolers is significantly changing?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And we, as librarians. Of course we know we don't censor, but why then?
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: And I don't see what the the question is in the chat. And I it sounds
Julie Edwards: it's more. Is there a way to balance? I think, to meet the needs of the everyone without
Julie Edwards: without getting into like book banning or things like that.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and maybe you've answered it in your presentation. Christina. This, you know. think that's
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: it's a bigger conversation to meet the needs everyone without. I think there's
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: a risk with everything we do right? We're gonna encounter people that aren't gonna be happy with something we do, 100% that can happen in your personal life. At work, it can happen anywhere. But if we
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: don't try
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: to have these outreach opportunities for people that have been underrepresented, and what does that say for us as a profession? And that's just my opinion, right like. And I'll go back to like with our the code of ethics and with the core competencies from y'all set
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and ask
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: I don't want to shy away from doing something because I'm scared that I'll be contested in another aspect. Right? Because then I'm censoring, too. So just for me
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: as a librarian,
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: just trying to connect share the amazing resources that the library has
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: and being open to learning about my community and the community and the people who need these resources. And just to continue to try to, you know, foster this understanding within
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: schooling, diversity and educational resources, and in the whole educational realm, in order to
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: to fit the community's needs.
Julie Edwards: I think that's fantastic, yeah. And a lot of there's been some things popping up into the chat just about, you know, relationships. It's all all relationships and connections. So we do serve everyone, and are there to serve everyone. So yes, getting some good jobs. So thank you so much. Wi, with that, Christina. Thank you. Thank you so much for this welcome. I just want to say my emails right here.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Please feel free to reach out if you have a question, or if you need support if you just need anything. And you're like, Hey, why do you think about this? I'm here because I people do that for me. And so you are not in this
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: alone to begin to serve this the population. even if it's first story, time song I'm here for you. Send me a note I'd love to hear from, you know. Please feel free to connect with me on Linkedin, too, and I can see them. The good work that you're doing, because that
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: it's amazing. And I just wanna say, thank you for serving your community. Thank you for being advocates. and thank you so much for spending your afternoon with me.
Julie Edwards: Thank you all for sharing in the webinar today. I will be sending out all of this information in a few days, and I look forward to seeing you all at the next webinar. Have a great afternoon, everybody.
Christina Giovannelli Caputo: Hi!