Jackie Suzich, LBSC741, Spring 2016

Maryvale Elementary School School and Collection Overview

School Overview
Maryvale Elementary School, located in Rockville, Maryland, is part of Montgomery
County Public Schools (MCPS). The school serves 620 students in pre-kindergarten through
fifth grade, and houses several special programs in addition to the regular community-based
elementary school program. Maryvale is home to four different pre-kindergarten programs:
Head Start for 3-year-olds; Head Start for 4-year-olds; pre-kindergarten; and a Collaborative
Autism Preschool Program (CAPP). There are approximately 70 students in the prekindergarten programs. The school also houses one of MCPS two county-wide elementary
school French immersion programs. For grades K through 5, approximately half of the students
come from the local community and are taught in English in a regular local community
elementary school program, and the other half of the K through 5 students are bused from
outside the local school boundaries to participate in the French immersion program and are
taught exclusively in French. Entrance into the French immersion program is a lottery for
kindergarten and 1st grade, and students may test into the program in higher grades if space is
available.
The school has an overall population which is 27 percent white, 28 percent black, 29
percent Hispanic, 8 percent Asian, and 8 percent multi-racial. Approximately 26 percent of
students receive ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) services, 8 percent receive
special education services, 44 percent receive free and reduced meals (FARMS,) and the whole
school receives free breakfast daily through the Maryland Meals for Achievement program. The
racial and ethnic mix at the school, however, is not evenly distributed amongst all classes. The

Jackie Suzich, LBSC741, Spring 2016

pre-K, Head Start, and English K-5 program serving the local school population, is largely
minority students with a high percentage of the schools FARMS population. While still diverse,
the French immersion program has a high percentage of the white students at the school and a
much lower FARMS rate than the local community students.
Maryvale Elementary School is located on a neighborhood street within the city limits of
the City of Rockville. The school library has a relationship with a local public library,
Twinbrook Library, which is just over 2 miles away. The Rockville Town Center library,
however, is closer to the school, at 1.2 miles away. Some of the local school children take
advantage of the local public library, but half of the students are bused in for the French
immersion program and pre-K programs, and it is unknown how close those students live to their
local libraries.
The school is housed in an aging building which was constructed in 1969 as a middle
school, and has not had any major renovations. The school is on the MCPS list of schools to be
renovated, but the date has been pushed back many times. The school has 25 classroom
teachers, 4 ESOL Teachers, a full-time media specialist, half-time media assistant, and 15 other
instructional support staff members (Montgomery County Public Schools).
Maryvale has the schools mission and vision statements on the home page of the school
web site:
Our Vision:
To prepare students for successful 21st century learning, Maryvale Elementary School
staff, in partnership with the community, will foster students social/emotional and
academic success through positive relationships, equitable practices, and high
expectations.
Our Mission:
Maryvale Elementary School believes that all students can and will achieve excellence
through a community of learners, creating a supportive, collaborative, and engaging
teaching and learning environment, a high level of achievement, rigorous and

Jackie Suzich, LBSC741, Spring 2016

differentiated instruction, using data in our decision making process, and culturally
competent classrooms (Montgomery County Public Schools, 2016).
The media centers web page includes the following statement:
We strive to provide a collection that supports MCPS curriculum and is both a mirror
and window to our students. We educate all our students to be responsible information
seekers and users. The library houses both an English and a French collection available
to students, staff and parents (Montgomery County Public Schools, 2016).

The school has an active PTA, which largely consists of parents of the French immersion
students. The PTA supports the media center program with volunteers as well as funding and an
annual book fair featuring English, French, and Spanish books. The PTA promotes school-wide
activities, advocates for the needs of all students and tries hard to involve the whole school
community in activities by including announcements in Spanish and holding activities such as
International Night for students to share their unique backgrounds and cultures. The school
Parent Teacher Association (PTA) initiated a Science Fair in 2015, and is holding another one in
2016.
The school also has a Book Fairy program, in which the students in classrooms which
have a FARMS rate greater than 44 percent (the percent FARMS of the whole school) receive
free books to keep. Because of the distribution of FARMs recipients, it is the students in the
preK, Head Start, and English K through 5 classes who receive the free books. The goal of the
program is to send one book home per month with every low-income child to help foster a love
of reading at an early age. The program is funded with money from the PTA, private donations,
and grants. The school seems to place a high value on reading and use of the library.

Jackie Suzich, LBSC741, Spring 2016

Media Center Collection Overview

The media center houses over 20,000 books with an average age of 19 years old, with
approximately 30% of the print collection in French. There are 24 computers housed in the
media center proper, with 12 dedicated for Fast Math use throughout the day, one at the
circulation desk, and one instructor computer connected to the interactive whiteboard. There are
28 computers in the adjoining computer lab, including one instructor computer connected to an
interactive whiteboard. Teachers may sign up online to use the lab as needed. All students in
grades 3-5 have individual Chromebooks on carts in their classrooms, and there are two carts of
Chromebooks available for K-2 teachers to borrow. The preK grade 2 classrooms have
between 2 and 5 desktop computers per classroom. The CAPP (autism pre-K) classrooms have
ipads for their students.
Because the media center serves students who are learning the curriculum in both English
and French, there must be resources to support the curriculum and reading for pleasure in both
languages. There are also many Spanish-speakers, and there is a small collection of books in
Spanish and dual Spanish-English. The collection is mostly adequate to meet the needs of the
French immersion and English program, and includes popular graphic novels and series in both
English and French, such as Bone, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dork Diaries, Geronimo Stilton, Junie
B Jones, Goosebumps, Magic Tree House, and Harry Potter. Many of the books are outdated,
however, and many, especially the French books, are in poor condition because it is costly to
replace them and there is inadequate funding to do so.
The media center subscribes to many databases, including some in French to support the
French immersion curriculum. The databases include: BrainPop (in English and French),
CultureGrams, PebbleGo, FactCite, Brittanica (in English and Spanish), KidsSearch (EBSCO

Jackie Suzich, LBSC741, Spring 2016

Host), TumbleBooks, SIRS Discoverer, Grolier Online, Rourkes ebooks, MackinVIA ebooks,
and World Book online. Most of the online resources are paid for and provided by MCPS to all
MCPS schools. Maryvales PTA, however, provides funding for several of the schools online
resources that the county does not, including BrainPop and WorldBook, in both French and
English. Many of the online resources include a reader feature for low-level readers or students
who prefer to have the text read aloud. The media centers web site also has an extensive list of
links to free English and French web sites for all subjects related to the curriculum and for
reading and listening for pleasure. The online databases are a valuable resource because they
are current and supplement the print collection with information that is lacking in the print
collection, especially in French.
The media center has a number of magazine subscriptions in French and English, and
magazines do circulate at this school (some elementary schools only allow browsing of the
magazines, they do not allow students to check them out). The current subscriptions include
Discovery Girls, Kids Discover, Zoobooks, Zootles, Jaime Lire, Japprends Lire (with
corresponding audio CD), and Mes Premiers Jaime Lire. There are also many back issues of
other French and English magazines which still circulate.

Jackie Suzich, LBSC741, Spring 2016

The breakdown of the collection is as follows:

Overall Media Center Collection

Audio/Visual
1%

Periodicals
5%

Non-fiction
35%

Easy/Everybody
Fiction
31%

Story Collection
0%
Professional
0%

Fiction
23%

Biography
5%

Reference
0%

Note: categories labeled at 0% represent less than 0.5% of the total collection.

Breakdown of Non-fiction Collection

000s 100s 200s
2% 1%
1% 000s Generalities

100s Philosophy & Psychology

200s Religion

Geography and History 900s

16%
800s
Literature and Rhetoric
5%

300s
21%

Social Sciences, includes fairy tales

400s Language
1%

700s

The Arts 8%

Technology

600s
14%

Natural Science and Math

500s
31%

Jackie Suzich, LBSC741, Spring 2016

The collection is large because it needs to serve the needs of students learning in French
as well as in English. It is sometimes difficult to keep up with changes in the curriculum, and the
media specialist needs to locate resources in French to meet the needs of the French immersion
students when changes are made to the curriculum. Many of the popular French books are not in
prime condition, but they are often difficult and expensive to replace, so they are kept in the
collection in poor condition because it is better to have a repaired book than to not have the
resource.
Ideally, there would be adequate funding to replace the outdated and worn materials, but
the media center does not receive additional funding above what other schools receive, even
though there is a need to provide comparable materials in two languages. As a result, many
areas of the collection contain outdated and worn materials. The online resources, including
several databases and encyclopedias in English and French supplement the print collection to
provide adequate current resources for students to complete their research and inquiry projects.
Here are some photographs of the media center:

This photo shows the main entrance (below the clock), edge of circulation desk on right, and magazines
below the globes.

Jackie Suzich, LBSC741, Spring 2016

Above photo shows view from main entrance, circulation desk on left, magazine area on right.
Below photo shows dedicated Fast Math computers in Everybody picture book area, with non-fiction area
in the corner on wall shelving and yellow-topped cases.

Jackie Suzich, LBSC741, Spring 2016

Below photo shows fiction section on wood wall cases. Note the size difference between the collection
of English fiction and French fiction books. The lower shelves under window are Everybody Fiction
pictures books.

<------------English Fiction---------------->
this wall

French fiction
below here

Jackie Suzich, LBSC741, Spring 2016

10

Works Cited
Montgomery County Public Schools. (2016). Maryvale Elementary Media Center. Retrieved
February 6, 2016, from Maryvale Elementary School:
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/maryvalees/mediacenter/
Montgomery County Public Schools. (2016). Maryvale Elementary School. Retrieved February
6, 2016, from http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/maryvalees/
Montgomery County Public Schools. (n.d.). Schools at a Glance. Retrieved February 6, 2016,
from Montgomery County Public Schools:
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/glance/