Troy High media center recognized as Model School Library of the Year

TROY — On March 7, state school Superintendent Michael Rice dropped by Troy High School to officially bestow upon them the honor of having the 2022/2023 Model School Library of the Year.

The award is given to a school in Michigan each year whose library and media center staff and facilities provide the ideal learning environment for their students.

“It’s a little bit overwhelming and surprising to be recognized in this way, but it’s an honor. I feel like the librarians of Michigan are awesome, so to be selected as one of the best ones in the state is very humbling,” said Toni Isaac, the media specialist at Troy High School. “I feel very honored to be selected as one of the better media programs in the state, but I don’t think I could have done it without the support of our administration and our fellow media specialists. This is the end result of having such a strong learning community of teachers and educators.”

Rice thanked Isaac and the rest of the Troy High School staff for helping make the media center at the school something special.

“I think the media center is beautiful. It has lovely ambient light, beautiful fans, and the books are extraordinary,” he said. “The partnerships in the community and the connection to trained librarians is also very significant. Across the state, there aren’t an enormous number of certified librarians. I think that’s something we need to expand in Michigan. Those are local decisions, but they are driven by what the state Legislature provides for local school districts.”

“Any recognition like this is an honor when it is the top in the state,” remarked Remo Roncone, the principal of Troy High School. “It’s really an exciting time for our media center, for Mrs. Isaac, for our kids and for our staff who utilize this space on a daily basis. It’s nice to know that you’ve got something that others can emulate and that you are doing the right way. It affirms that when we went through the process of remodeling this space and revamping things in the last 12-18 months, that we were doing the right thing.”

Isaac said that the high school’s partnership with the Troy Public Library has granted them a lot of benefits and thinks that is one of the aspects that makes the Troy High School media center stand out.

“I think more libraries should collaborate with their public libraries. We’ve been able to help with Troyberry and Battle of the Books, which are our reading incentive programs. We select books we feel would have a wide appeal to students and then challenge the students to read as many as they can. (The Troy Public Library) has expanded the loaning options for our students and they deliver books our students request here. They’ve made it possible to have a digital library card so they have access to their digital content as well.”

Isaac added that the Troy High School Media Center team has also put a lot of effort into ensuring students have access to whatever types of material they require.

“I don’t think (our success) is anything I’ve done by myself,” she said. “I think our district has done a really good job with collaborating with the Troy Public Library, which is also amazing. Because of this, we’ve been able to expand the resources that are available to our students. I think we have fought really hard to protect our students’ rights to intellectual freedom and exploration. I think we work well as a team and have been able to build a great library program for our students in the district from pre-K to high school.”

Rice credited the school’s efforts to foster diversity in its media and resources as one of the key reasons the Troy High School Media Center stood out to him.

“So often today, we see a restriction in what children are able to read,” said Rice. “We want the most diverse classroom and school libraries. We don’t have to read everything on the shelves but we should see ourselves represented on the shelves; mirrors and windows, so to speak.”

Roncone said that a recent remodel of the media center helped bring its resources up to date and make sure it was a space that fit the needs of the students.

“The school opened in the early 1990s, and we did our first major remodel of the space in the last year. It’s now a modern media center,” he said. “I think supporting a media center from an administration standpoint means being involved, listening, watching what’s going on in your school, and looking at what other media centers are doing. We went around to other media centers in the county before we remodeled the media center here to look to see how we could best improve.”

He hopes people continue to recognize his staff’s hard work at making the school’s media resources as strong as they can be and thinks that their media center is a great example of how some relatively modest improvements can mean significant improvements in a school setting.

“This is a good example of being able to make improvements in existing spaces. You don’t have to have a complete new space built. You can utilize existing spaces. I think a lot of schools are afraid to take on a project like that since they are afraid of the scope.”