I worked for 13 years as a library media specialist (school librarian) in Prince George's County, Maryland. I retired 4 years ago, but still keep in touch with my friends who are librarians in Prince George's County Schools. I am sad and frustrated at the current move that will destroy the libraries and library programs that we built up.
This was sent from The MLA (Maryland Library Association)
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 12:16 AM
Subject: Action Alert! Prince George's County Public Schools' Library Media Specialists Need Your Help
The Board of Education of Prince George’s County in releasing its budget request for the FY 2012 school year has accepted the School Superintendent’s recommendation to cut 92 School Library Media Specialists and passed the budget request on to the County Council intact. This reduction in staff affects every school library by cutting positions in elementary and middle schools to ½ time or less and leaving 88 Library Media Specialists to serve 180 schools. This loss will have a profound impact on school libraries and literacy programs that affect some of our most needy students.
Governor Martin O’Malley released his proposed FY 2012 budget for Maryland. In this budget, funding for schools has been flat funded and paired with a loss of student population in Prince George’s County the School system is faced with the reduction of 1,100 positions overall.
In preparing students for 21st century careers it is critical that students have access to current information and know how to become smart consumers of that information. School Library Media Specialists help students become information, media and technology literate and often the school library is the only place students have access to a library. Eliminating these positions in this critical area represents a significant loss of investment in all our futures.
It is vital to restore this funding to Prince George’s County. You can help, please contact the Prince George’s County Council, the Governor, and local elected officials and let them know that students and school libraries need their help.
Prince George’s County Council http://www.co.pg.md.us/...
Governor of Maryland http://www.governor.maryland.gov/...
Prince George’s County Delegation of the Maryland General Assembly http://mdarchives.us/...
Ninety-two librarians is half of the librarians that currently serve in the schools. As it is currently, the school libraries are understaffed according to Maryland state standards, this is going to put Prince George's even more at a disadvantage to neighboring school systems.
In 1978, the Tax Reform Initiative by Marylanders -- known as TRIM -- resulted in cuts to funding for schools in Prince George's County, and consequently, school library programs were cut drastically. Most elementary school libraries had their staff reduced to a half time school librarian. Many of the principals decided to use the funds (about $15,000 a year) for a full time aide who was not certified to teach or hold classes and in most cases, did not have a college degree (certified school librarians have their masters degrees in either library science or education).
My principal valued education enough to hire an accredited school library media specialist. When I worked in an elementary school, I worked half-time in a school with over 750 students. I had the option of working full time and alternating weeks between two elementary schools. I decided to work half time and come in for a full day on Mondays and Tuesdays and for half a day on Wednesdays. Anyone who has worked a half time position knows that you end up doing more than you're paid for, but that was all right, I wanted to do my best for my school. Truthfully, I worked a full day on most Wednesdays. I organized a crew of parents to do book checkout on the days that I wasn't there. After five years, our school population had increased to 850+ students, and the board of ed. decided that our school could have a full time media specialist.
Contrast that with neighboring Howard and Montgomery Counties which had (and still have) full time media specialists for all elementary schools, and most have an aide to help with the clerical work and to do book checkout while the media specialist teaches a lesson.
I moved on to a high school where I worked for 8 years. High schools were full time, and I had an assistant. Sounds great after the elementary school position, but we were still understaffed by Maryland State Standards, which said the standard for a school the size of mine would be two school librarians + assistant. Neighboring Howard and Montgomery Counties met the standard. I was a little startled when I realized my sons' school in Howard County which had half the number of students as mine had twice the number of librarians.
During the period of time I worked in Prince George's County, with the strong leadership of Shari Blohm, the Supervisor of Library Media Services, and advocacy from the Library Media Advisory Team, our school library program improved, we obtained additional funding and grant monies to build our collections and upgrade our technology.
The necessity for having a full time accredited school library media specialist was recognized and more of the school librarians went to full time. In the last two years I was there, the schools that had libraries staffed by aides were told that those positions were going to be fulled by accredited librarians. I was proud of the aides in my region that enrolled in graduate school to obtain masters degrees and become certified).
When I left Maryland four years ago, I felt that Prince George's County School libraries were on the cusp of becoming what they were supposed to be. Our libraries had recently received a large infusion of money and our collections were much more updated. I was able to purchase books that teachers had been asking me to buy for their class research projects, and also I was able to buy the kind of books that students were asking me to buy. I was seeing the impact on my students who were becoming excited about the new books we were putting on the shelves.
Students were using the library a lot more before and after school. The principal tried a new scheduling idea which allowed students to have an hour free during lunch, and the library was packed.
And now the school board is cutting back the library program again, undoing everything we did for the last twenty years.
Joni Mitchell said it best, I think -- "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone."