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California School Libraries Continue Staffing FightsAs fiscal-year budget deadlines loom for California school systems, library staff in at least three school districts continue to battle to keep their jobs for FY2008, while school library media specialists in two other municipalities seem to have found staying power for another academic year.Advocacy by library boosters is triggering the reconsideration of a plan to reassign as classroom teachers all six library technicians serving the Fullerton Joint Union High School District. Library staff were notified April 16 (the beginning of National Library Week) of the plan devised by high-school principals to save $360,000 by reassigning staff. “We’re trying to make the reductions as far from the classroom as possible,” Superintendent George Giokaris said in the April 21 Orange County Register. Library staff—along with appreciative parents, students, and graduates—advocated for retaining the district’s six high-school library technicians at a May 1 school board meeting as well as earlier behind the scenes. District officials have since requested each librarian to submit by May 31 written reports that “enumerate the tasks done by the library technician,” Fullerton Union High School librarian Diane Oestreich told American Libraries. “I’m so frustrated. I have so much work to do and I have to spend all my time defending our existence,” she added. The board will make the final decision June 19 when the FY2008 budget is approved. At Benchley Weinberger Elementary School in San Diego, hundreds of schoolchildren gathered May 4 to protest the reassignment of technician Terri Knight, who has served for almost 22 years at the school library, which reopened in a new building in 2005. Knight, whose job is slated to go to a district employee with more seniority, told NBC-TV affiliate KNSD May 7, “They said I can bump someone else. Why would I want to do this to somebody else?” On May 10, the board of the Durham Unified School District reluctantly added athletics and libraries to its list of areas under consideration for cuts. “I’m afraid we have reached a point where we have to touch libraries and/or athletics, and I’d rather it be the athletics because it is a little further from the classroom,” board chairman Mark Kimmelshue noted. Kimmelshue was responding to Superintendent Penny Carter’s warning that the FY2008 budget would continue to be a “moving target” until the state education budget was finalized, according to the May 11 Chico Enterprise Record. Although uncertainty about state appropriations is affecting projections for most California school districts, officials at Madera Unified School District rescinded May 8 their March 13 decision to eliminate altogether the certificated post of library media teacher, which would have forced the reassignment of four middle-school librarians. (The district has no librarians at the elementary-school level.) Madera Public Information Officer Jake Bragonier told American Libraries that the board “did not relish” the original decision, but had made it “based on the Education Code” in California, which only mandates school library media specialists at the high-school level. “Now that we have a clearer picture of what our budget will look like for 2007–08, the board realized these positions will return,” he added. Martin Luther King Middle School library media teacher Sharon Stockdale told American Libraries that Superintendent Larry Risinger cited a stack of letters of support from librarians across the state as influencing the retention. Advocacy also paid off for the only two middle-school library media teachers serving the Carlsbad Unified School District, whose positions were briefly on the chopping block in March. Six days after being told by Superintendent John Roach that he was recommending the cuts to free up funds for district salary hikes, the board nixed the plan at its March 28 meeting; the decision followed “two powerful three-minute speeches” plus letters and e-mails of support, Valley Middle School Peggy Hodge reported March 30 on the CalibK12 discussion list. “We will continue to advocate for our libraries, especially now that we know from first-hand experience how important it is to keep our advocacy ongoing!” she concluded. Posted May 11, 2007. |
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