By Tom Tolen / news@whmi.com

The Brighton Area Schools have achieved an enviable accomplishment — all seven schools have earned Exemplary certification in the 21st Century Library benchmarks program.

The schools include Brighton High School, Scranton Middle School, Maltby Intermediate, and all four elementary schools: Hawkins, Hilton, Hornung and Spencer. The program, sponsored by the Library of Michigan, is designed as a tool to help measure the quality of school library programs within individual buildings in a school district. Library of Michigan Grants Coordinator Karren Reish says the Brighton Area Schools is one of a small number of school districts in Michigan in which all of its schools' libraries have earned Exemplary status. "Brighton is doing great work with their students through their school libraries," she said.

To achieve Qualified and Exemplary Status, school administrators evaluate their building’s library program in conjunction with the school librarian. The schools then submit the evaluations to the Library of Michigan, which is an arm of the Michigan Department of Education. Brighton Area Schools Director of Technology Chris Turner, who is in charge of Brighton’s media specialists, says the school libraries were already performing many of the 21st Century practices outlined in the program. As a result, he says, they felt they might as well invest the effort to apply and, hopefully, gain the status and recognition the students, staff, and schools deserve.

According to Turner, the application process — which was begun over a year ago — was not about the volume of books in a library or the number of books read by students but about programming and practices that promote collaboration, meet the individual needs of students, and align with “best practice” standards. Turner says the district is “proud that the school library media specialists are being recognized for all of the essential work they perform.” He adds that the media specialists “are important for (the district’s) literacy efforts (and) a critical partner to classroom teachers.” The library personnel are all certified library media teaching endorsed, and all collaborate with classroom teachers for a cohesive approach to getting the maximum benefits from a school’s library.

Future improvements and upgrades to each school’s library are planned as a result of voter approval of the $59 million bond issue last November.