Wild About Harry—Administrator of the Year 2005

It’s 10 a.m. in Aurora, CO, just outside of Denver, and the Grandview High School library is bursting with life. Its two classrooms, each equipped with state-of-the-art technology, are overflowing with kids. In one, Patricia Holloway, the library coordinator, is introducing a group of entering freshman to the library. In the other, media specialist Marcia Wolfe is working with a 10th-grade English class on a research project. Nearby, in the center of this vibrant 15,000-square-foot space—the site of 600 library classes a year—a third class is huddled around their teacher, discussing a novel. It’s even buzzing in the librarians’ office, where Evelyn Scott, the third librarian-teacher—yes, the third in this 2,600-student school—is conferring with English teacher Vernal Pope about a project they created last summer for an 11th-grade AP class.

By any measure—from circulation of the 44,000-item collection to impact on learning to the teen-friendly look and feel of the place—the library is tremendously successful. This is certainly due to the talented library staff members, who have teamed up with classroom teachers to create a culture of critical inquiry and who approach students with respect, high expectations, and plenty of warmth and humor.

For all of this to happen, of course, someone had to decide it was worth doing. That person needed to understand the power of a comprehensive library program, the value of hiring terrific teacher-librarians, and the importance of providing the full-time, six-person library staff with adequate funds—more than $45,000 annually. At Grandview High, that someone is Principal Harry Bull.

Bull is the first to admit that he didn’t always “get” libraries. It was while working on his masters, and then his doctorate, in education at the University of Northern Colorado, that he “came in contact with some terrific librarians who had a real impact on my learning.” He appreciated the research skills they taught him and the world of learning those skills opened up.

When he joined Grandview High School in 1997 as associate principal to help create the school—it opened in 1998—Bull made sure that a teacher-librarian, Beth Giles, was part of the planning cadre. “Harry defied conventional wisdom in not only allocating a disproportionate amount of available funds for the library, but [he] also endorsed the decision to use a substantial part of those funds toward a quality reference collection rather than sheer number of books,” says Giles, who was library coordinator until her retirement last spring.

In the seven years since the school opened, “Harry never wavered in his encouragement and financial support of the library as the integral foundation of all other academic disciplines,” says Giles, who, once the school opened, became a member of the Instructional Leadership Team. Both Giles and Holloway describe Bull as a man who understands the potential of libraries but also believes in hiring the right people and then making it possible for them to succeed. “He’s not a micromanager,” Giles says. “He empowers you.”

Early on, Giles was eager to integrate information literacy into the curriculum. “Harry championed my efforts to gain commitment from core coordinators to mandate research projects,” she says. Why such a big emphasis on improving kids’ research skills? “It’s about college readiness,” says Bull. Since 80 percent of Grandview’s students go on to college, it’s probably no coincidence that all three Grandview librarians are reading—and discussing—David Conley’s College Knowledge (Jossey-Bass, 2005), which charts the difference between students who are prepared to do well in college and those with shaky skills who are simply able to get in. “Inquiry-based learning is great for kids because it requires the gathering of information and the testing of theories—both of which they’ll need for college and for life,” adds Bull.

Every year, Grandview students engage in a research project. In their freshman year, the focus is on science, sophomore year it’s on English, and junior year it’s on American history. Seniors choose from electives, such as anatomy. The research projects, as with all the library’s activities, are closely tied to both the Colorado Information Literacy Standards and the National Education Technology Standards. “[The projects] ensure that all our students have the same experience, and allow us to build on the critical [thinking] skills students learned the previous year,” says Holloway.

It wasn’t easy convincing some teachers to collaborate with the library. After all, teachers today are under pressure to teach a lot of content. At six feet, four inches, Bull may be an imposing figure, but he prefers a light touch. He reminded his teachers, repeatedly but gently, how crucial information-literacy and critical-thinking skills were. The understated approach worked, and eventually everyone got on board. “We need to help kids meet these challenges, and libraries by nature do that,” says Bull. “It all comes back to what’s best for the kids.”

The impact of these projects has significantly affected student learning. What’s more, it has changed forever the relationship between librarians and classroom teachers, creating a true culture of collaboration. Teachers work with librarians readily and sign up for the opportunity to bring their classes to the library months in advance—in September, classes had already been blocked out for February. This dynamic has made it much easier to build a collection, avoiding for the most part any information emergencies.

Holloway reports that they are also tracking the Colorado Student Assessment Program scores, among others. It’s no accident that Grandview’s ninth-grade students performed better on the reference-skills section than on any other reading assessment. It’s probably fair to say that their showing was at least partly attributed to the science project.

Science scores on the PLAN test, a “pre-ACT” test taken in the sophomore year, are also heading upward, as are the scores juniors are attaining on the science section of the ACT. PLAN is considered a useful predictor of success on the ACT, itself a widely accepted college entrance exam designed to assess educational development and predict college success. The ACT requires students to read and interpret data representations, research summaries, and conflicting viewpoints, just as they do in completing their science projects. The results? Eighty-two percent of Grandview students score in the top two quartiles of PLAN and the science mean score for the ACT has risen to 21.8, nearly two points above the state mean. Science teachers attribute this increase to their collaboration with librarians.

It’s three in the afternoon and traffic in the library has finally slowed down. Holloway heads off to a meeting with the English department, computer in tow, to discuss some newly purchased online databases. Three young women surf the Internet together, laughing at whatever it is they’ve found. The freshman football team, with its coaches, has arrived for a half hour of study before practice—a daily event. Librarians love it when the least-likely group of users, ninth-grade boys, gains library exposure. Several students are curled up on easy chairs, quietly reading novels.

One informal measure of the library’s effectiveness, the bowl of chocolates in the librarians’ office, full this morning, now sits nearly empty. Scores of students and faculty alike have passed through the office to say hello, get advice, and seek recommendations on a course they’re developing or a college application they’re completing. It’s always hard to measure a library’s return on investment (ROI), especially when it comes to investing in community building, but Grandview’s library accomplishes this task as well as any library in the nation.

ROI for the library? Bull doesn’t hesitate to give an answer: “For us, the library has given Grandview High School value for its money. It’s helped teachers grow in their practice and helps support the culture of learning. In my experience, money spent in the library provides enduring value for the school.”