WINDHAM HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY
ANNUAL REPORT
2024-25

MISSION & PHILOSOPHY

The mission of the Windham High School Library is to promote literacy, learning, critical thinking, and the educated use of information and resources to all students so that they may successfully learn and compete in an information-rich world.

The library is the hub of the school, where all patrons have a right to intellectual freedom: to their own thoughts, beliefs, and ideas. Access to information is essential to a democratic society. The librarians at Windham High School will continuously strive to provide our patrons with a wide variety of resources and encourage collaboration and open dialogue. We will follow policies, like those found on the American Library Association (ALA) website, that protect our patrons’ privacy while allowing as much information as is legally available. We will also do our best to follow the ALA’s Code of Ethics and Library Bill of Rights but recognize that a balance will need to be found in order to realistically meet the needs of our patrons.

READING & LITERACY

5,010

number of books circulated this year

Top Ten Circulated Titles:

On the Edge of Gone
Together We Rot
Maybe Not: A Novella
November 9
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
We Were Liars
The Eye of Minds
It Ends with Us: A Novel
It Starts with Us: A Novel
All We Could Have Been

The Read to ME group visited the district primary schools to read to the younger students. The high school students love to see the primary school kids, and the primary school kids love to be read to!

LEADERSHIP

Students:

We model effective and responsible information use across diverse subject areas to promote deep learning.
We motivate students to engage in recreational reading to cultivate an enduring passion for discovery, journey, and imagination through literature.
We empower students to engage in critical thinking and analyze information more skillfully through instruction and hands-on activities.

Staff:

We consistently participate in departmental, BAC, DLT, and additional meetings to share knowledge within our specialized fields.
We offer carefully selected materials in multiple formats to address diverse staff requirements.
We work alongside educators to develop comprehensive and meaningful instructional units.

CIRCULATION & COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT

COLLECTION ANALYSIS

According to an analysis of the print material in the Windham High School Library, our collection is considered to be large, but old. We are working to update our books as often as the budget allows. There has been slight improvement over the years.

WHS Library At Risk Library Basic Library Exemplary Library

Number of items per student: 17.4 11 13 15

Age of the fiction collection: 2006 2004 2007 2009

Age of the non-fiction collection: 2000 2014 2017 2019

Total age of the entire collection: 2002 2002 2005 2007

15

number of inter-library loans

8,425

number of items added to the collection

552

number of student sign-ins

5,144

number of items circulated this school year

TECHNOLOGY & ONLINE RESOURCES

Databases Use

Classroom Video on Demand - 993 clicks
Issues & Controversies - 1,979 views
Science Online - 1,165 views
Today's Science - 90 views
Gale eBooks - 3,239 retrievals
ABC-CLIO - 1,815 searches

New Databases

Brisk Teaching

This was our first full year of using the Brisk Teaching Chrome extension, and it's been a huge success! Read below to learn more about it.

"Brisk is an AI-powered Chrome extension that helps busy teachers save time directly within the tools they already use, like Google Docs, Slides, YouTube, and web articles. Quickly create instructional materials, share feedback, evaluate student writing, and adjust or translate texts - all without leaving your current workspace. With Brisk, the days of toggling between apps are over, freeing up more time for what you love: teaching.

We Believe...

Every educator spends countless additional hours working beyond their classroom time. We see you, and we think it's time for a well-deserved change. You should enjoy your weekends and lunch breaks and not spend them on extra work. That's where Brisk comes in. It's a free Chrome extension that works with the tools you already use, automating your tasks without any extra apps or platforms. Because we believe that lightening your workload shouldn't mean adding more to your plate. Add to Chrome for free and experience more time back for you, guaranteed.

1️⃣ Teachers are unparalleled professionals who deserve equally professional tools built around their needs.

2️⃣ Teaching has become 100 jobs in one, and teachers deserve intuitive, professional tools that streamline their wide-ranging workload.

3️⃣ Teaching is irreplaceable, but for the rest of your workload, there’s Brisk.

Features include:

TARGETED FEEDBACK ON ASSIGNMENTS: We provide customized preliminary feedback on student assignments.
AI DETECTION: Identify AI use in Google Docs and Google Classroom assignments. We look at the content, version history, and time spent on these assignments to determine the likelihood of AI-generated text.
CURRICULUM WRITING: Brisk can help create lesson plans, quizzes, and more, so you don’t have to start from scratch.
LEVELED RESOURCES: Use Brisk to adjust the reading level of news articles to fit your students' needs.
AND SO MUCH MORE!"