Current and Future Directions for School Media Specialists

School media specialists have served as technological experts for their schools and have been pioneers with digital natives, helping create good digital citizens and addressing digital gaps for learners and advocate for access no matter what barriers students face. School of Library and Information Science programs have focused on creating a curriculum that will help create a school technology expert for every school library. This served schools well during the COVID-19 shutdowns, where the school had to find new ways for students to learn remotely.School media specialists have now become the target of hate in their schools. This has become increasingly complicated with states legislating what can be put in school libraries and how teachers can address historical events. School media specialists are required to make decisions on access or potentially losing their jobs. While these are important areas, they are just a small part of the job for school media specialists. The American Association of School Librarians has increased the expected role for school media specialists, having them often serve as teacher, instructional partner, information specialist, and program administrator, all in addition to serving as the expert technologist at their school. However, not all school media programs take this approach to pedagogy for school media.School media specialists create technological opportunities for schools and are a key source for teachers seeking to reach students with diverse learning styles while informing and building relationships with families on internet safety and other important topics. Teachers depend on school media specialists to provide resources and support for the classroom while school media specialists also support students’ intellectual freedom. Ultimately, the focus for school media specialists has been to try to create a school library that represents everyone’s values. While this sounds ideal, it has been a difficult road for the profession.The position of school media specialist has changed dramatically over the last four years. This panel seeks to address research contributions to scholarship on school media specialists and how Schools of Library and Information Science are changing their programs to prepare school media specialists for the workforce. There will be a moderator and a panel comprised of four faculty members who are educators, practitioners, and researchers specializing in school media. Their perspectives and expertise will be present in this discussion, along with the following discussion topics:What are your current research findings telling you?What are practitioners experiencing?What is working with educational pedagogy in school media?What is not working with educational pedagogy in school media?What new technologies have you incorporated into the curriculum?What changes are being made at Schools of Information Science programs to help ready students for the current environment?The panel will explore questions of education, research, and practitioner-based experiences to address concerns impacting school media specialists. The information will inform the future discussion and curriculum pedagogy for school media specialists. The panel discussion will be formatted around the expertise of the faculty with school media. These discussions will inform pedagogical teaching practices in school media programs and hopefully provide a framework for improvement.