Although K.C. Boyd’s keynote was hampered with technical difficulties, we persisted. (All of us librarians, library media specialists, teacher librarians, etc. are familiar with tech hiccups after the past couple years.) In the first half of her talk, she spoke about the school librarians’ advocacy efforts in Washington, D.C., after schools went remote during COVID. “Always remain ready” to advocate, she advised, even when things are going well, and keep the focus on the students: “It’s not about the librarians, it’s about the children.” It is unfair to students, especially those in already under-resourced schools, to lose access to school libraries and librarians.

(This reminded me of the Massachusetts Equity & Access study from 2018, available for download from MBLC. Even across the Commonwealth, there are dramatic disparities between schools, meaning that some students have access to fully staffed, high quality library media centers, while others have no certified librarian and less (or no) access to library resources. Research has shown that students in schools with a certified librarian and a school library have improved reading scores – something everyone wants – so funding school libraries equally is essential.)

When school libraries are threatened, librarians must become activists as well as advocates. (An advocate speaks on behalf of a person or group; an activist acts intentionally to bring about social or political change.) K.C. suggested that mid-career, late-career, and retired librarians are the ones who should be on the front lines of this advocacy work, and she provided some guidelines for teamwork:

• listen to understand
• be respectful
• let go of your privilege
• gently “check” your peers
• wellness checks
• we are all in this together

Library activists should BE PREPARED with messaging: one message, many voices. K.C. advises, “Remain student-centered at all times….Keep ‘I’ out of the conversation….[the message is] We care about students.” Root your message in research; K.C. cited Dr. Keith Curry Lance and Dr. Stephen Krashen. Librarians can testify at education hearings, write op-eds, use social media, and tap local and national organizations, like EveryLibrary, for help. The bottom line is that “Inequity in school library services is wrong,” and we must work toward equity. She closed by saying, “We all must be truth tellers. Tell the truth. There is strength in numbers.”

Hashtags: #GoodTrouble (a reference to a John Lewis quote, though apparently it is also a TV show now), #DCPSHasLibrarians (DC-specific), #FReadom

Separately from her keynote, K.C. Boyd also presented a session on “The News Literacy Project and Digital Citizenship.” KC is a national ambassador for the News Literacy Project (NLP) for the DC/Maryland/Virginia region. K.C. said, “I think it’s very important that digital literacy is taught in our K-12 schools.” Students are bombarded and overwhelmed with information and sometimes it’s not reported well. “We want students to be responsible users of media” and “it is our responsibility…to create a digital world we want to live in.” Particularly in the turbulent past two years – the Black Lives Matter movement, the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, and the COVID-19 pandemic – it is “important for kids to understand where they could get good information.” K.C. said that she wanted her students to have “a full understanding of what was taking place,” so she used the NLP and Checkology to teach media literacy. Those lessons helped kids understand the news and how it is presented in society. “We owe our students the truth,” K.C. said, acknowledging that every community is different and advising librarians to “walk the line.”

The Checkology program is free for educators to use. I first heard about it a few years ago from Damaso Reyes at the “Libraries in a Post-Truth World” conference.