Good morning -

I wanted to announce that at yesterday's State Board of Education meeting the new New Jersey Student Learning Standards were adopted.  You may recall that many representatives of NJASL's Board and Membership contributed to the Draft Standards by meeting with the Department of Education or through public comment with the SBOE.  

While the language fell short of all of our recommendations, I am pleased to say that School Library Media Specialists are named specifically in the mention of selection and curation of resources, as well as providing professional development for teachers and staff.  This is a huge win for us and I want to thank all those who spoke up in this effort, either through time with the DOE or through public comment in person or via email.  Thank you all! This is a direct result of your efforts.

In addition, Information and Media Literacy, Technology Literacy, and Digital Citizenship are now formal standards under Career Readiness, Life Literacies, and Key Skills.  This is a real move forward in recognizing what we do in preparing our students for school and for life.  After all, we are the certified staff specifically trained to teach this standard.  We, and our contributions, are being recognized and heard at the Department of Education.  While our work is not done, we are encouraged by this good news.  For more details on the specific comments and responses, please see the attached document that Mary Moyer created.

Congratulations and thank you for the hard work you continue to do!

All the best,

Jill Mills