In the milestone 10th episode of Learning in Lake Oswego, we spotlight the thriving world of the Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB). This beloved program has become a cornerstone of academic engagement in our schools, showcasing our students' prowess on the statewide stage.
Our guest, Darcy Benson, the library tech at Oak Creek Elementary and a key figure in our district's OBOB initiative, joins us. Alongside Darcy, we hear from some of her exceptional students from the renowned OBOB team, The Flying Coyote Readers: Jack Brody, Jai Lim, Keenan McGhee, and Pearl Sun. Together, they offer insights into the program's growth and impact, highlighting the importance of fostering a love for reading and teamwork among students.
Dr. Jennifer Schiele, Superintendent, LOSD
Mary Kay Larson, Executive Director of Communications, LOSD
Darcy Benson, Library Tech and OBOB Coordinator, Oak Creek Elementary
Jack Brody, Jai Lim, Keenan McGhee, and Pearl Sun, Students, Oak Creek Elementary
MICHELLE ODELL:: [00:00:00] Welcome to Learning in Lake Oswego. A podcast providing educational insights for an engaged community. Lake Oswego School District Superintendent, Dr. Jennifer Schiele , will discuss what's important to our learning community. She'll be joined by experts examining various topics, answering important questions, and sharing upcoming events and activities you won't want to miss.
And now, it's your host. Lake Oswego School District Executive Director of Communications, Mary Kay Larson.
MARY KAY LARSON:: Welcome to the 10th episode of Learning in Lake Oswego. I'm your host Mary Kay Larson, here with our superintendent, Dr. Jennifer Schiele. Today, we are shining a spotlight on the Oregon Battle of the Books, or as you may have heard, OBOB.
This is a program that is flourishing in our schools and our students are really making a name for themselves on the statewide stage. Joining us today is Darcy [00:01:00] Benson. Darcy serves as a library tech for Oak Creek Elementary and is also one of our amazing district OBOB leads. Joining her are a few of her students who recently participated in this year's OBOB competition.
They are called the Flying Coyote Readers. I feel like we kind of have an indie band coming on, but nope, they are the most amazing elementary students. They are Jack Brody, Jai Lim, Kenan McGee, and Pearl Sun. So without further ado, I know Jen is eager to talk about the world of OBOB with Darcy and the students.
Let's dive in. Welcome, Darcy.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Every time I visit Oak Creek, I think the library exudes warmth and inspiration, reflecting your evident passion for literacy. We are so lucky to have you working in our OBOB program. Before we start talking about OBOB, can you please tell me, how did you come to LOSD? Like, what brought you here?
DARCY BENSON: Well, [00:02:00] I got my master's in teaching from WSU Vancouver and 1999 and then we immediately bought my in laws house in Lake Oswego and moved into the Uplands neighborhood and I started working for the Lake Oswego School District. I've, I've been everywhere. I've worked as a substitute teacher in every building in, in the district at every level.
I've done orchestra. I've gone on field trips. I've taught part time. I've taught full time. During the pandemic, I was teaching part time math. And after that, I kind of want to do something different in the library tech assistant. position opened up and boy, it's just, it's a lot of fun. And I kind of miss teaching sometimes, but there's some aspects that I don't miss at all.
And I like to do all of the fun things that I can do in the library that I can do contests. I can do, Oh, Bob, I can, right now we're doing March book madness at, at the library. Oak Creek, where we are voting on our favorite chapter and picture [00:03:00] books. And we're at the sweet16 right now of March Book Madness.
It closes tomorrow and we'll go to the elite eight. And so we'll, we're, we're doing a lot of fun things with literacy and trying to promote literacy.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: I love that. I think you've landed at the best spot possible for you right there in the library. Can you give us an overview of the Oregon Battle of the Books program and its goals?
DARCY BENSON: Great, yes. The Oregon Battle of the Books has been around since I believe 2007 2008 was the first program year. It's been supported and managed by the Oregon Association of School Libraries. They support the program. They have, you know, written the rules that there's, if you go online, you can find a lot of resources about Oregon and Battle of the Books.
And it was the library's services, technology act, something like that, that funded a lot of the beginning of OBOB and, and still does some OBOB funding. They've provide grants, a lot of different schools [00:04:00] obtain books through OBOB grants. We're very fortunate in our district that we're well supported and we're able to purchase a lot of these books.
And we have a lot of students participating at least in the elementary level. I know they are in the, middle school and high school levels. In our school, we had about 100 students sign up for OBOB this year, and we winnowed that down to one team of four that were our school champions that then went to our regional tournament, which I hosted this year at Oak Creek on March 2nd.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: That's great. So what inspired you to get involved with the OBOB program? It's literacy. It's books. It's, it's, yeah
DARCY BENSON: Here it was happening in my school. I originally, when I first started as the library tech assistant, I was not the OBOG coordinator for our school, but I served on, there was a committee of us that, that got together and figured it out and, you know, helped form the teams and the registration.
And there's a lot of administrated part of it. pieces to OBOB. The tournaments involve a set of questions that are [00:05:00] very well guarded. OBOB does not want those questions to be leaked out. And so even practice questions, fortunately, many libraries around the state prepare practice questions so that students can then practice and then go into the battle format of the battles, which are battles are 16 questions, two teams, each team gets four of each type of two different questions.
There are eight in which book questions, eight content questions. And when we're first battling, we don't allow them to steal points by answering another question. Okay. teams questions but once we get into the tournament style knocking people out then they can steal and they can, they can add extra points by answering the questions that the other team missed.
So it's, it's an intense battle and it's an intense competitive and sometimes there's a little bit of crushing heartbreak for teams that have worked very hard and read all 16 of the books and and it can be [00:06:00] it can be sad when teams do their best and they still some teams lose. So, that's hard.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: So you just mentioned 16 books.
Is that every grade has to read 16 books or is that at the fifth grade level?
DARCY BENSON: The third through fifth grade division routinely has 16 books. Like two years ago, there was a book that then went out of print and was not available and they ended up dropping it. So that year they had 15 books. But yes, it's in that grade level, it's 16 books.
And you know, our elementary level books are a little bit shorter and I believe believe it's pretty customary to have eight to twelve books in the six through eight division and then the, the nine through twelfth division. They, I mean, they have longer novels to read, but yes, it's, it's a number of books that they read.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Huge time commitment.
DARCY BENSON: It is.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: So who gets to select these books or how are they selected?
DARCY BENSON: They nominate books. You can go online. They've, they've nominated for next year, so you can't nominate for next year. They're all, they're all, But one [00:07:00] nominated in the third through fifth grade division, but any teacher, any librarian, any community member could go on and nominate a book for Not next year, but for the following year if they have a lovely book that they said Oh, this book is wonderful.
We should nominate it for obob and then then they review them They like to get books that can be available in paperback, because like at our school, we have 100 kids or so that are competing to read these 16 books. So I like to get multiple copies of each book so that kids can read these books, get them in their hands.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Yeah. And one of our special guest students, mom, who I was just speaking to. Speaking to in the hallway was talking about how she likes Obab because it opens up her child's eyes to different authors, more diversity just different genres of books that maybe he wouldn't pick just generally. So does Obab try to do that on purpose or is that just really what's happening?
They do.
DARCY BENSON: They, they, they try to [00:08:00] often there is a biography or an autobiography included. There are some. which in our library would be classified as short fiction, which are some of the easier chapter books that students are more able to read. They make them more accessible for our, perhaps our third grade, first time Obobbers.
Students can listen to them on audio books. You know, we, we finish the books. It doesn't have to be that they've read them, which opens it up. It's more accessible to more students that maybe are not stronger readers, but we do have audio book versions available. The public library has audio book versions available.
We try to make sure that it is open to everyone. to everyone. And everyone has an opportunity. So, and there's graphic novels, which are always the most popular of the books that we can't get enough graphic novels in our libraries right now. But the graphic novels, I try to have even more copies of the graphic novels available because the other kids see, [00:09:00] see them.
And it's like, I just want to read that book. And, you know, perhaps it's a second grader and they just want it. So you were kind of mentioning the point system. So like I'm on a third grade team and I'm competing with another team and you're asking me questions about this book I either read or I listened to and then there's a judge I'm guessing and that person says yes or no.
Yes, we have we have three of The volunteers are critical to running the OBOP program. We need parent volunteers. We have three volunteers usually for each battle. We need a moderator who is the, the one that reads all the questions is the final judge and jury for, If those points are awarded or not, we have a scorekeeper that keeps the official score sheets.
We, you know, that's very important. And then we have a timekeeper because they have a limited amount of time to answer. And students may only, only one person from each team may answer. There are teams of, You have to have at least two. [00:10:00] They can't have more than five. Only four may compete at a time, so if they have five students on their team, they have to elect who sits out, which makes it a little bit more complicated if they're splitting up the books and who's reading what, to make sure that they have all the books covered for each battle.
So, there's always a little bit of a challenge when they decide to have a And team of five to make sure that all those books are covered. But then, yes, the battle is 16 questions. They'll flip a coin. One team is like the odd team and one team is the even team. And the odd team is offered all the odd questions and the even team is offered all the even questions.
And they'll get four of That there's eight in which book questions where then the students need to answer with the the full title and the full author's name And then there's contact questions which are about a specific book where they must It'll say like in the book the lion of mars and they'll ask a question and then sometimes those are two part [00:11:00] questions And usually the question will say this is a two part question.
So it's it's very detailed and nuanced, that they must absolutely have read those. I've read all the books the last couple years and sometimes I'm listening to the battles and it's like, oh, I read that book, but I'm, I'm not sure of the answer to this question. And the kids answer it correctly. And it's like, wow, maybe it's just like their, their younger minds are, are picking up better detail than I am.
I'm not certain, but it's, it's it's tough. It sounds difficult. It is.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: And it sounds like in addition to reading and comprehending, it's, it's almost has this real world problem solving when you talk about who's going to be competing this week or this day, and then strategic thinking,
DARCY BENSON: teamwork, practicing, collaborating, who's going to read what book, and Who's going to help each other.
It's really, it's really great at [00:12:00] our school. We we have a wonderful fifth grade teacher, Mr. Rain, who's very artistic and he has designed OBOB t shirts for our OBOB team. And so then we always do that in black and white, and then the teams can come in and they can, they could tie dye their shirt, or they could color it with a fabric markers, or they can personalize it in any way that they want.
So we have our, our, Oak Creek Obob t shirt, but then, then the students make it their own in whatever fashion suits them. So it's, it's, it's a lot of fun. And there's so many different elements. They get to, picking the team name, that's such a big deal. They can pick whatever team name they want. And, and so sometimes their parents register them and they register them with the team name and they'll come up to me and they'll go, Mrs.
Benson. We don't want that team name. That wasn't our mom put that in. We don't, we don't want that one. We want to be, we want to be the super califragilistic chicken tender people. XB Alidocious chicken tender people. That was one of our team [00:13:00] names this, this year. It didn't fit really neatly on on the
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: name tag,
DARCY BENSON: but you know, that's the name they chose and it was, you know.
They're very creative. And it's, it's great fun to see them from, for regionals to see all these other team names that these creative students from all the other 27 teams that came to regionals. It was, it was fun. That was a lot of fun.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: I bet. Could you share some success stories or memorable moments from your experience, maybe this year or last year that you just, you want to share?
DARCY BENSON: Well, you know, I've had so many parents just like, Oh my God, my, my student is just reading and reading and reading and they weren't before. And now they're picking up, like you said, they're picking up so many different books and because they read this book and liked it, then they want something else in that genre.
They're exploring much further afield. They're, they're finding different, just so many different types of things to read. And suddenly, you know, They've picked up [00:14:00] a biography and suddenly, oh my gosh, we have this whole section of biographies. Isn't this wonderful? They want, they want the biographies and they're all over them.
And it's just, I mean, we have our really popular series of books, Dog Man, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, you know, Babysitter's Club, those, those are really popular books, but when they are ready to go and pick something else up and, and try new things, because they've run through the series of one of those books, and that's when it's exciting, when they're, we're trying new things, we're getting somewhere else, where it's taking us places, when, when books can take you places, and when they're, when they're getting there from being in OBOP, that's just really fun.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Especially places where you can't typically go. That's why it's so fantastic. How has the OBOB program impacted the reading culture and academic excellence at Oak
DARCY BENSON: Creek? We purposefully had them previously practicing in the second grade hallway. And so when those second graders came [00:15:00] through and they're like, Ooh, OBOB.
I'm going to be an OBOB next year. So we've kind of, we've kind of seeded the field. We do a lot of different things. I had I got this idea from River Grove. They did an OBOB brag wall where they put up a bulletin board with a page for each of the book. And every student that had finished listening to or reading that book went up and signed the brag wall.
I've read this book and you know, then other kids are like, I want to read that book. And so it's, it's just, it's just really fun to, you know, promote all of this reading. It's, it's just, it's great. And, and kids are just like, my brother's in OBOB and I'm going to be in OBOB next year when I'm in third grade.
And one of our, our OBOB team members, his little sister has told me that at least three times as my brother's in OBOB. I'm going to be in next year when I'm in third grade. So it is, it's, it's a cultural thing. It's, it's a school pride thing. I think district pride is what led me [00:16:00] to sign up to be the regional manager because I knew our state champions in our division, third through fifth grade state champions were from Helen Ann last year.
And it's like, you know, if we're providing the state with state champions, we could probably provide regional tournament. So that's that's kind of what got me signing up. It was a big job
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: and thank you for doing that big job
DARCY BENSON: It was a lot of fun and it's good to bring that to your school And I had so many people in my library.
It's like I love this library I want this library because our oak Creek library is it's it's one of the best rooms in the whole school district So if you haven't been in there, it's just beautiful. We have two story windows that just Look out over trees. It's, it's a beautiful space.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: It is a beautiful space.
And it's fun that you're making reading cool for, for everyone. I mean, including those younger kids who are, you know, looking up to our older students, our older leaders, and wanting to be like them. You kind of mentioned earlier about what I would call [00:17:00] reading with your ears, which is usually listening to a book, but are there other ways that OBOB program is inclusive and accessible for all students regardless of their background or their abilities?
DARCY BENSON: Well, the books are all available in our library. I do, because there's so many kids, I do limit them to one OBOB book at a time, because if somebody wanted to check out, I have higher limits of checkouts, I think, than some schools. Like, my fifth graders can check out seven books at a time, and if they checked out seven of the OBOB books, then they could They really can't read all seven at the same time, so I do try to limit that.
But yeah, we have the books available. We try to not have them where they can't get them. They are available in Sora. A lot of them are available. Not all of them. Sometimes Sora is a little bit more difficult to get an audiobook. So they are available online. We can also connect with the Lake Oswego Public Library that has a little bit more availability.
So the audio book feature, parents can read these books aloud to their children too. That's listening [00:18:00] is reading is reading, whether it's listening, whether it's reading the book yourself, you don't have to come. Some students come to us and say, we've picked our team. We're going to be together. You know, we're registering together.
We want to be a team together. But some students just register and say, we'd really like, I'd like to be on a team, but I don't, I don't have one or I'm new to the school and I don't know anybody. And we place everybody, everybody gets placed. Nobody is, there's no, the criteria for, Oh, Bob is signing up.
You have to actually have a parent sign up. We had a deadline. Of course, not everybody made it by the deadline because, you know, parents are really busy. And, and so if somebody. Sent in their form that they want to be on a team with these three students and maybe one of them didn't sign up I was reaching out to the parents and saying hey the deadlines passed But your student was indicated as somebody who on other students would like to be on a team with our are they?
Interested in Oh Bob. Here's the link to sign up if you'd like to sign them up So I try to make sure that everybody who wants to be there is [00:19:00]
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: That's great. It's what I really love about Lake Oswego, too, is everyone goes that extra mile to make sure people are included. And I think that's so important. So looking ahead, what are your hopes and goals for the future of the OBOB program at Oak Creek?
DARCY BENSON: Well, you know, we had, you know, About a hundred kids sign up, and that's about, you know, a third of our third through fifth graders signed up. I think that's pretty good. I would like to have more participation, you know, a bigger program, more kids reading. I'm, I'm in. But, you know, some kids are like, that's not for them, and that's, that's okay.
But keep it going strong, keep it focused. We had somebody nicely donated plaque for our library where we can list our our winning team for the year and it has I think 12 spaces to list for the next 11 years past my retirement I'm probably pretty sure but the winners from Oak Creek and we're proudly displaying that in our library now with our our lovely flying coyote readers who won [00:20:00] they went to regionals they fought hard they made it to the sweet 16 there's there's They play four pool play games, and then the top 16 go onto a knockout round in the tournament.
And they made it to the Elite eight and they got into a battle of they went five tiebreaker rounds before they missed one question, and were knocked out of the tournament that if they would've made it to the, the final four. The final four would have been all Lake Oswego School District teams.
It was Hallinan against Lake Grove and Westridge against the team that beat Oak Creek Access Academy. And it would have been kind of cool to have an entire Lake Oswego School District out of all 28 teams that. That went, have it all be Lake Oswego, but we are really close and they did really well. So that sounds like a good goal for next year.
All
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Lake Oswego teams. That's all Lake Oswego
DARCY BENSON: teams in, in the final four regionals. [00:21:00] That would be great. Darcy,
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: that is a great segue. To welcome our students, I want to thank you very, very much for being here on the show today. I loved hearing about OBOB and everything it offers to our students, and thank you so much from the bottom of all of our hearts for all the work that you did to not only lead this team, but also run that regional program.
DARCY BENSON: It was fun. I had a good time, and our school was very gracious, and I had a lot of great volunteers from our school, too, and I, I thank the volunteers from the bottom of my heart, because we can't run this program without volunteers. Volunteers were amazing.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Thank you. Great to have you. Welcome, Flying Coyote Readers!
Hey! Hi! Can you tell me your name and what grade you're in, and then how long you've been participating in OBOB team?
JAI LIM:: My name is Jay. Jay? And I am nine years old. I've been playing OBOP for two years.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: That's [00:22:00] fantastic. So, OBOP team names are so creative and fun. How did you come up with this Flying Coyote Readers name?
For one,
JAI LIM:: the mascot of our team is a coyote. So, that's basically how we came up with our name, the Flying Coyote Readers.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: So, where did the flying come from?
JAI LIM:: That was a part by our moms who decided the final name.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: That's great. So, one other question I have for you is, what do you enjoy most about participating in OBOP?
JAI LIM:: Sometimes the books are really fun.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: What's one book that you really enjoyed reading?
JAI LIM:: It was last year's A Wish in the Dark.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Oh, what was your favorite part about that book?
JAI LIM:: The whole book in general, just because like it had a really fast pace.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: I love when books move quickly, thank you. Alright, thanks for being here, I'm gonna have the next student.
Hello, can you tell me your name, what grade you're [00:23:00] in, and then how long you've been on?
PEARL SUN:: I'm in fourth grade. My name is Pearl, and I've been doing OBOB for two years.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: It's probably like
PEARL SUN:: reading the books one time, and then you have to read them again, even if you're like tired of them sometimes. Now why do you have to read them twice?
Because it helps you remember the details more clearly. Got it. And did you read all 16 books this year? Yes. Wow! And did you read them all twice? Some of them I read more than twice. Oh my gosh, that's fantastic. That is a lot of reading, Pearl. Thank you so much and thanks for being here today. Hello! Can you tell me your name, what grade you're in, and how long you've been on an OBOB team?
JACK BRODY:: My name is Jack and I'm in fourth grade and I've been doing OBOB with my team for two years. [00:24:00] Fantastic. Do you have a favorite book or author? Probably New From Here by Kellyanne. Can you tell me a little bit about that book? Well, it's about a boy who has to move from Hong Kong to the U. S. and has to survive the pandemic.
Oh, wow. What is your favorite non Hobo book? Probably The Hunger Games. Ah, The Hunger Games. What did you like about that? Because that's kind of scary, isn't it? Yeah. Is that what you liked about it, that it was scary? A little bit, yeah. Have you ever seen the Hunger Games movies? No. They're also scary.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Alright, well thank you for being here. Hi, last but not least. Could you tell me what your name is, your grade, and how long you've been on an OBOB team? My name is Keenan, I'm in fourth grade, and I've been doing OBOB for two years with my team. What advice would you give to other students who are interested in OBAB?
DARCY BENSON:: Well, there was one team that I would tell this [00:25:00] to in my school. Like, they read the books, but they didn't read them very often. They read other books instead. So you should probably read the OBAB books more than the others. Also, you should read them more than once, because a team did that. And they didn't, no offense, they didn't get really good scores.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Got it. How many times did you read the books? Yes. Well, some of the books, sorry to my team, I didn't read it all, and some of the books I read like ten, over ten times. Oh wow. So you're trying to be strategic and making sure that you knew the books that you read really, really well so you could answer all the questions.
DARCY BENSON:: Yeah, our team like has this strategy of each person reads four books because we have four people. And then if we each read four books, that will add up to the total of 16 books. We also read four backup books in case someone's not there during a battle. That is super smart. Who came up with that strategy?
I think it was like a [00:26:00] Jay's mom. I think. And then we all agreed with it because it was pretty good. Yeah, it was very good. So what's next for the Flying Coyote Readers? Do you think you'll still be a team next year? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so the four of you will stick together? Yeah, but Jack here said he's going to be doing OBOP in middle school.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Oh, he's not going to do it in middle school? Or he just doesn't want to. I think it's because of like all of the homework that he's gonna have to do. Got it. Well, you know what, he should just wait and see because the homework might not be as bad as he thinks it's going to be and he'll still have time for that OBOB reading.
But I do think it'd be great to see you guys all stick together as a team all the way through middle school and I can have you back on the show and you can talk to me about the difference between middle school and elementary OBOB. Would that be fun? Sure. That'd be great. Okay. Thank you so much for being here today.
MARY KAY LARSON: Okay. Good luck. This conversation makes me want to curl up with a good book in the beautiful Oak Creek Library. Absolutely. [00:27:00] I love how our schools are continuously evolving and innovating and finding new ways to engage our students and inspire learning. Jen, let's segue to Where's Jen? What are some of the fun things and exciting places you'll be in the next couple of weeks?
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: One new engaging and inspiring opportunity coming up that I want to talk about is the River Grove Art and Craft Fair. Now, they're hosting this first annual Art and Craft Fair on Saturday, April 6th from 10 a. m. to 4 p. m. All in the community are invited to this inaugural event featuring local artists offering everything from candles and handmade bags to ceramics and jewelry, and it also includes our youngest and very important vendors, River Grove Students, who are showcasing their very own creations for sale.
More than 52 vendors are excited to see you and I think it's going to be Absolutely amazing. I know I'm excited for that. I know the River Grove community is really hopeful [00:28:00] that people will come out and support the arts at their school. This concludes today's learning in Lake Oswego. In our next episode, we are going to focus on another growing and flourishing program in our schools, particularly our elementary school gardens.
MARY KAY LARSON:: And until next time, keep exploring and stay engaged. Class dismissed. We hope you found this episode informative and helpful. While our discussions are general, we understand each family's experience is unique. If you have specific questions about your child, please contact your school principal. To learn more about the topics we discussed, ask a question, or share ideas for future episodes, please visit LOSDSchools.
MICHELLE ODELL:: org. And remember to like, and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for engaging with Learning in Lake Oswego. We appreciate your support and look forward to having you with us for [00:29:00] our next episode.