Oleai Elementary’s Valle is PSS Librarian of the Year
Reporter
The CNMI Board of Education and the Public School System named Charlene Valle as this year’s Librarian of the Year.
Valle was conferred the prestigious honor during awarding rites yesterday at the Marianas High School gymnasium, coinciding with the Commonwealth’s designation of April as School Library Month.
Valle was presented with a plaque of appreciation from PSS and a plaque of recognition from CNMI Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan in front of hundreds of students from private and public schools.
Valle is the librarian aide at Oleai Elementary School. Since joining PSS in October 2006, she has been selected as the school’s Support Staff of the Year several times. This year, she actually bagged the overall title for Librarian of the Year, besting 18 other contenders.
“This is overwhelming!” she told Saipan Tribune yesterday, adding that the honor was unexpected.
Valle was inspired by her mother to become a school librarian. The 35-year-old employee is a daughter of a long-time school librarian.
She assists hundreds of students daily with their reading needs. “Just helping them find books and other reading materials every day is truly fulfilling. I feel satisfaction every time I help them out.”
Oleai’s library has an estimated over 3,000 materials.
Education commissioner Rita A. Sablan said she is very proud of Valle, who was selected for the honor by her own peers.
“We’re very pleased to have Ms. Charlene as the system’s Librarian of the Year. She is really an icon because her mom was also a librarian for the longest time at Garapan Elementary. I have worked with her mom at that time and I know Charlene has the same passion like her mother,” Sablan said.