Posted June 23, 2003

San Jose Levy Loss Erases School-Librarian Jobs; Parents Save One Post

Dayle Moore will get to keep her job as the librarian of the San Jose (Calif.) Unified School District’s Hacienda Elementary School, thanks to a fundraising drive by parents who raised $52,000 to pay her 2003–04 salary. However, the system’s 26 other school librarians were not so lucky; their positions were cut after the June 3 defeat of a $6-million parcel-tax measure dedicated to help maintain school-district services. Twenty-four of the librarians are being reassigned as classroom teachers; the other two were laid off since they were not certified teachers.

When school resumes in the fall, SJUSD’s libraries will be staffed by technicians.

The draconian cuts are due, in part, to a $11.6-million reduction in state aid to school libraries that Gov. Gray Davis signed into law in March. The proposed parcel-tax initiative would have increased property taxes on a single-family home by $98, with a 2% increase cap per year until its 2008 expiration.

The prospect of losing Moore, who was named the district’s 2003 Teacher of the Year for increasing circulation from 400 books a month to 1,000, mobilized Hacienda parents to ensure her retention. “If we lost the librarian... we’re talking about taking a perfectly wonderful school down to zero,” Tessie Crosby said in the June 14 San Jose Mercury News.

Since SJUSD officials have eliminated the title “library resource specialist” from the FY 2003–04 budget, Moore will be called a resource teacher. “I’m just taking one year at a time,” she told the Mercury News. Among the other jobs slashed from the budget were those of 22 dropout-prevention counselors and two school nurses.

Posted June 23, 2003.