About Your Media Center

Welcome to the Ashland Ridge Media Center. Students attend Library Media classes once a week to learn library and information literacy skills. We also spend some time integrating technology into the lessons when it is a natural fit in the curriculum. Some lesson topics include how to use the library online catalog to find a book, and research skills using print and online reference materials. These library and information literacy skills will help our students succeed in any library or fact-finding situation in years to come. Book check-out time is scheduled into your student's schedule as the last 10 or 15 minutes of guidance class each week. This is an opportunity to select books the students will enjoy reading independently or with a family member. Our hope is to place books into the hands of all our students to help them develop a love of reading and an appreciation for many types of literature. Students are welcome to visit the library at anytime to check-out books that they enjoy; all that we ask is that their teacher or parents know where they are at that time.

Media Center Hours
We are open from 8:00 a.m. - 3:15 p.m. each school day. Students are also welcome to visit the library with their teacher's permission during the day.

Media Center Staff

		Mrs. Colwell transferred to the Ashland Ridge Media Center from the Northeast Media Center in the fall of 2008.  Prior to working at Northeast Elementary, Mrs. Colwell worked with special needs students at Westwood Elementary.  Mrs. Colwell and her husband Mike have a son in the Ankeny School District.  Prior to joining the school district, Mrs. Colwell worked as a paralegal, a copywriter, aninvestor relations		Mrs. Shafer began working in the Ashland Ridge Media Center when it opened in the Fall of 2008.  For the past eight years, she was an academic advisor for Elementary and Early Childhood Education majors at Iowa State University.  Mrs. Shafer and her husband live in Ankeny and have two sons that attend Northeast Elementary.  She enjoys watching her sons’ karate lessons and attending their football, soccer,
	representative,and logged hundreds of hours as a library volunteer in her son’s schools!  Mrs. Colwell enjoys watching sports with her family, playing with her cat Spencer, and curling up with a good book.		basketball and baseball games.  She also teaches kickboxing classes.  She has been a classroom teacher, coach, counselor and advisor, so she has always felt at home in an educational setting.  She feels that she has found the perfect job for her interests, since she gets to work with children and be surrounded by books – reading is her FAVORITE activity!

Library Policies
Students may keep their library books until the next scheduled book check-out day, or one week. They may renew the book at least once if needed. If they must renew more than once, they can visit with Miss Dagel or her associates to make arrangements. Student check-out limit is as follows:

• Kindergarten: 1 book
• First grade: 2 books
• Second & Third grade: 3 books
• Fourth & Fifth grade: 4 book

Overdue Books
If a book has been lost or damaged, the student is responsible for paying to replace the book.