Down in the Valley

I started thinking about writing about the bad news of the state of affairs affecting Shawnee Mission libraries and librarians. And not only the bad news, but the emotional toll that closing a building as well as the possibility of job closings has on one. There is still bad news out there, but after reading the blogpost in School Library Monthly entitled Be Proactive: Face Your Fears I am not quite so pessimistic. There is a very good possibility that our library budgets will indeed be zeroed out for the 2011-2012 school year. What they don't realize is how creative we librarians can be when we are faced with no money. Book fairs, selling cappuccinos to raise money for library books (we did this for 5 years) , etc. We definitely don't sit still and not provide good resources for our students though. The other possibility for next year is a little more daunting. What is on the table is to eliminate secondary librarians and replace them with library aides for a savings of $568,000. There would be 1 librarian retained to be in charge of high school libraries and 1 librarian retained to be in charge of middle schools. That librarian would rove to a different school each day. OK, now we all know how ridiculous this is, but when we're talking $10 million needing to be cut, they see this large expenditure of librarians and we are sudddenly a target. The district conducted a survey among it's employees, students and patrons. The good news is that the survey results were published last night at the Board of Education meeting and the public is definitely in favor of librarians being retained in our schools. The librarian question is #17. 37.7% agreed that we could be eliminated and 41.1% disagreed. I know this doesn't add up, but you'll have to look at the report. Will we be saved? I doubt it. We had a very eloquent parent and student speaking on our behalf with convincing arguments. What we didn't do was speak ourselves because many thought it would be like begging for our jobs. In retrospect, I'm not so sure about that was a good idea. Sooo, probably 8 of us will be reassigned. Another librarian position? Classroom teacher? Here's the other bad news: The board isn't voting on these proposals until August! What's up with that? So, stay tuned for more rants, ravings, and musings. From Death in the Valley.