Poly Returns To Library Conference for 100th Anniversary

The 100th annual California State Library Conference took place at the San Francisco Airport Hyatt Regency Hotel from February 5th to February 8th. The focus of the conference is to share methods and ideas to improve school curriculum and performance. Poly has always maintained a strong presence at the annual event dating back to the first meeting in 1915. Violet Gersham, Poly’s librarian in 1915, was one of the original 33 school librarians throughout the entire state of California to attend. This year’s conference opened with a speech from Michelle Luhtala, the department chair of New Canaan High School Library. From then, the over 600 librarians in attendance partook in various educational lectures and demonstrations. A total of 66 sessions, ranging from integrating common core into school curriculum to speeches from famous authors and politicians, such as former Arizona governor Bob Wise, were available to the attendees. Mrs. Oehlman was Poly’s representative for the event. She, along with 8 other librarians from the LBUSD, attended all 66 sessions and traded notes. One particular presentation that stood out to Mrs. Oehlman was the student response system, “Kahoot!”. Kahoot! lets teachers evaluate students through questions given on students’ personal smartphones. Mrs. Oehlman says, “It was so neat to me that Violet Gersham went to the first conference 100 years ago, and now I got to go. I feel so honored to be able to carry Poly’s legacy and continue the fight for our students’ education.”