Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!
Kristi Moulton
Students use the library at Logan High School.
The heart of our La Crosse schools beats in the school libraries. Vibrant, alive locations full of learning and knowledge, inquiry and discovery, and growing readers. That idea of the quiet space and shhh-ing librarian is long gone, replaced with storytelling, creating, reading, and making which is often not a quiet process.
Every day, the librarians of the La Crosse schools share books and authors with 6,000 students through read alouds, displays, book talks, and 1:1 readers advisory. Did you know that in partnership with the public library and the La Crosse Public Education Foundation, we have been able to bring four nationally and internationally awarded authors to visit students in our schools over the last five years?
Kids are EXCITED about reading, meeting writers, and seeing both windows to other lives and mirrors of their own in the books and authors in the library. And we are excited to help grow readers through providing full-time library services in our schools.
Our work includes so much more than books. We are active partners in planning and teaching with other staff, learning and integrating new technology, and providing professional development every day. We act as front-line technology support in our K-12 1:1 program, teach online safety, digital citizenship, and research skills, and help both staff, students, and families navigate the web for school and for fun.
Most importantly, we create and maintain library spaces where kids can come in anytime to explore their interests, get help, and have a safe place to take risks.
All of our schools are served by a licensed librarian who is also a licensed educator, most in a full-time capacity. This is not always the case, or a priority, for other school districts, but La Crosse itself has prioritized the work of librarians. We are community collaborators, evident at a recent Wisconsin Library Association Conference, where four of our school librarians presented on how we are able to provide exceptional service to our students due to strong partnerships with public librarians, UWL academic librarians, and the La Crosse Public Education Foundation.
The safe spaces we create and maintain are the gold standard in the district’s strategic plan for educational equity. Access to diverse and engaging collections, resources, and technology allows students to dream, believe, and achieve at a higher rate. Every student in our schools has access to a librarian and their services, including preschoolers, charter school students, and students who are part of the juvenile detention program.
When each of our students has a librarian who knows them and cares for them, we know that our district is focused on what is best for kids. We are thankful that every day, we have the chance to work with these kids and you, their families, to help grow a whole community of lifelong library users.
School District of La Crosse Library Teachers: Cindy Halter, Kristi Moulton, Chris Schiffer, Abby Von Arx, Lila Planavsky, Darcy Maxwell, Caden Pohnl, Gary Boisvert, Shelayne Dunn, Kristen Martin, Kristin Hoeth, Lisa Altreuter, Amanda Pfiffner, Carrie Wuensch
The graduates exit the arena.
The Logan High School Choir
Honor speaker Tatyana Roberts delivers her speech.
The Logan High School Band
Kiya VanBlaricome hugs her grandmother Anna Crapps.
The graduates wait for the ceremony to start.
Logan Wall of Fame Inductee, Tony Yang
Logan Commencement
Lauren Jarrett receives her diploma
The graduates exit the arena.
Logan principal Walter Gnewikow speaks as graduates are projected onto a screen
Thomas Greany celebrates as he receives his dipoma.
In Photos: For more scenes from the 2022 Logan High School Commencement, point your smart phone camera at the QR code and tap the link.
Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!
I have been a member a local school board member since my daughters, now 11th-graders, were in second grade. In that time, I have been involved in education policy discussions at the local, state and national levels on issues such as the rights of LGBTQ students, standardized testing and the privatization of public education.
As a classroom teacher and mother of 10 children, Esther Fleurant knows that every child has different needs. And she knows how important education is for their futures.
🎧 Hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada are joined by Chris Lay to — perhaps foolishly — make their prognostications for the new year.
Commentary: In our cynical age, we put too much emphasis on belief and too little on simply paying attention.
As Christmas approached, readers have asked me how they can donate to charities that are helping Ukrainians.
Some media heavies have been written and talked about day after tedious day, month after tiresome month. May the obsession over them fade in 2023.
University officials have been curiously nonchalant
The desire for liberty is not something that is culturally conditioned but rather is something that is innate in each person. Perhaps there is hope for China after all.
The House of Representatives spent Dec. 23 passing the $1.65 trillion omnibus spending blowout, and the bill is loaded with earmarks and pet priorities from health care to public lands that few members have bothered to read. This is no way to run a government, and compounding the embarrassment is that half of the lawmakers had already ditched Washington for the holidays.
Kristi Moulton
Students use the library at Logan High School.
Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.