Objective
Managing Program Resources: Human, Financial, Physical

Indicator
Candidates plan adequate space for individuals, small groups and whole classes.

Thirty new computers. Nowhere to put them.

The county has promised to deliver to our school an entire lab's worth of new Dells -- with the strict stipulation that they be placed in the media center, not in a computer lab, for general student use.

Considering that our media center currently has only seven Dells, this sounds like a dream come true. Unfortunately, we don't have space for thirty new machines. Worse yet, we've got an entire lab of dying machines scheduled to be removed this summer -- with no promise of replacement. Next year the lab will sit empty.

Faced with this awkward dilemma, I worked with my media team and administration to devise a solution: a minor renovation to expand our media center space by removing the walls that separate it from the computer lab.

As we consulted the facilities standards in Maryland's Standards for School Library Media Programs we discovered other weaknesses in our media center: an insufficient informal reading area, little room for group projects, inadequate AV storage, no single media office. Space matters -- and in our case, poorly organized space hampers the services we can make available to staff and students.

Since we were proposing a minor renovation anyway, we worked into the plan solutions for our other primary space problems. Administration signed off on the proposal and we anticipate the renovation to take place this summer.

For 34 years our media center lumbered along with weak organization. Our new layout will enable us to support teachers more effectively while offering students better access to technology and greater high-interest periodicals, and to give teachers -- all from rearranging a number of walls.

Artifacts

File: Renovation Overview (PDF)

Images:
Current Space
Proposed Space

McDaniel College
Westminster, Maryland 21157-4390
410-848-7000