CA Pride - Miriam Hartman

Miriam Hartman thought she was ready to retire after a successful career as librarian with Portsmouth Public Schools. But she was not quite certain she was ready to give up working with students. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Hartman happens to be a close friend of our former librarian, Kathy Batkin, who knew exactly how she was feeling. Mrs. Batkin suggested that Mrs. Hartman should join the CA faculty and staff on a part time basis and keep the best of both worlds: The flexibility of retirement coupled with the joy of working with young students.

I think all of our faculty will agree that Mrs. Hartman became a valued member of our staff so quickly that we often forget that this is her first year with us. She works closely with our elementary faculty to ensure that our library collection is well maintained and updated. She is the "go to" person when we are seeking resources on certain topics. She oversees our AR program for elementary students. Our young students look forward to her regular visits to read and discuss books with them. In March, Mrs. Hartman presented an excellent program for parents and students about the importance of "raising a reader".

Being librarian at CA is certainly a different experience from running a more conventional library in a larger elementary school. She has to oversee and coordinate a library collection of several thousand books that is housed in different classroom libraries. To say that Mrs. Hartman had to adapt her approach to her work may be an understatement. Yet, she embraced this new opportunity with such a positive, flexible attitude and is adding her own special touches.

Mrs. Hartman’s commitment extends beyond her responsibilities as librarian. She quickly became a part of our CA community in a number of ways. We started to get to know her even before she was officially on our staff. She attended last year’s school auction just after accepting the position for the coming year. Since then, she has supported school events as fully as she is able. She is always quick to offer assistance when she observes a teacher, staff member, or student who appears to need an extra hand. What I appreciate about this is that in Mrs. Hartman our students not only have a person who inspires them to read, but they also have a great role model to be a caring, helping person. Now that is what I call fostering a love of learning.