A Day in the Life of a STAAR Librarian

This post is not about being a "STAR" Librarian; it's about being a "STAAR" Librarian.  In other words, this is all about what a DHS librarian does when she is not actually giving the STAAR test, not assigned to a boot camp or assigned to a senior classroom.

At the end of March, our campus administered the English I and English II STAAR tests.  With that came lots of online testing.  So back up the timeline to a month before the testing.  That is when I warned our teachers that the mobile labs were going to be confiscated for these tests; I hate to rip away key resources from our hardworking teachers without warning.  

Now, fast forward to the week before the tests.  My faithful library aides along with our staff picked up 13 mobile labs and brought them to the library for the tech department to load the STAAR program on each laptop.  The Monday of testing week, we delivered 8 mobile labs to their rooms, and we kept 5 in the library "just in case."

Tuesday, March 28 at 7am ... the morning of the English I test.  Blanca and I visit every mobile lab and classroom lab to make sure the students could log onto their computers.  If a student does not know his/her password, we replace it with a temporary one that the student then uses to change it to a permanent one.  Once we reset passwords, our main concern became to make sure the laptops were working.  We seem to have an issue with the laptops as they travel from one side of the building to the other.  They seem to fall off the server.  Usually the prompt we see is "no logon servers available."

Although there are many theories out there as to why this happens, theories do not make the computers work.  Between 7am to 8:30am that morning, we had 1 lab that had not been loaded with the STAAR program and one that was completely dead.  After that, we had over 40 laptops from the other labs that gave us the "no logon servers available" prompt.  Thank goodness for 5 extra mobile labs sitting in the library.

Once everyone was settled, I picked up the power cords and delivered them to each room with a mobile lab.  We had a problem with some of our laptops shutting down during the fall testing.  Then it was back to the library to await any other emergencies.  Yikes!  Not exactly what I envisioned for this particular morning, but we powered through it.  Every student who needed a computer did take his/her test online.  Thank goodness we had a day to recover before the English II test, and the tech people had a day to fix the laptops and deliver them back to the proper rooms.

Wednesday, March 29 ... check each classroom lab and mobile lab for power outages.  We had quite the storm the night before.  All I needed was 8 dead labs because the storm tripped a breaker.  All were in working order.

Thursday, March 30 at 7am... same drill.  First we go room to room offering to reset passwords. Then we hang around to make sure the labs are working.  We had 30 laptops this day with "no logon servers available."  Again, so happy we had extras in the library.  We were back in the library by 8:30 after we made sure each student once again had a working laptop.

Friday, March 31...bring all the mobile labs back to the library and make a list of all the missing laptops.  I had to switch a few labs around because a couple of them had 10 or more laptops that were at the tech center being reloaded.  No one wants a lab with that many computers missing.  By Friday afternoon, all labs were back in the teachers' classrooms ready for Monday's lessons.

Things that I learned last week...

• 5 extra mobile labs was not an excessive amount to keep "just in case."
• Wear comfortable shoes... I logged in 54,222 steps that week which is roughly 18.5 miles.
• Don't panic.  Trust that you are prepared for all the problems that arise.
• This is a sensitive time for the students, and many already have test anxiety.  My frustration does not help the situation.

Thanks for stopping by!