Policy Change for School Libraries in Louisiana

ImageChef.com - Custom comment codes for MySpace, Hi5, Friendster and more

Just last week I blogged about the importance of being an advocate for your school library and in so doing you will be an advocate for all school libraries. Little did I know that less than seven days after writing that post the need for advocacy would reach a critical point in Louisiana. The Board of Elementary and State Education (BESE), which is the Louisiana state board of elected and appointed officials, has decided that they can help reform the schools by amending Bulletin 741. This is the handbook that the administrators in all districts must use as the guidelines for managing all public schools. The title page and forward is pictured below.
Click the above image to enlarge

Then the other day, a librarian in northern Louisiana sent out a link to Bulletin 741 with all the points in the document that BESE wants to cut. There are lines drawn through many of the resolutions, but it is Chapter 17, section 1705 that makes me sick. I have made a copy of this section for you to see below. You can click on the image to enlarge it. You can see by all the lines crossed out that school libraries and school librarians may be left out of a school budget with ease. It is now going to be up to the districts to decide if a librarian is necessary, and also it is not required that libraries receive a budget for materials. 

Open here to see Bulletin 741 in its entirety









Excuse me? I am not important? Library resources are not important for educating our students? I beg to differ. I offer so much to the faculty and students at my school. I opened the library in 2006 with 1800 books on the shelves. Through hard work and many hours of writing grants, the library now has over 6400 volumes, over 600 electronic reference books and many other electronic resources too. When colleges and universities are rated for quality, the library and the number of volumes in the library is always part of the equation. Why is that not true for elementary and secondary school too? It should be. This is my 21st year as a librarian in a public school in Louisiana. I have faced cuts to the library before on the local level, but a district would always have to get a waiver if the libraries did not follow the state guidelines. Now the state wants to allow districts to make all the changes they want without waivers -- all in the name of reform. This is not reform. It is all about money and not spending it. Without a library, a school and school districts would save an enormous amount of money. But at what cost? The students of Louisiana would definitely lose out. If you want to know 100 things that students would lose without their librarian and library, click here right now.

What can you do? If you live in Louisiana you need to contact your BESE representative before the January 16, 2013 meeting and tell them not to slash school libraries. Tell everyone you know to do the same. Click here to open the link for the contact info for all BESE members. If you need talking points, check out the list of 100 things that students would miss without a school library. If you don't live in Louisiana, you need to be an advocate for your library or your favorite school library.

Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 10, 2012 at 8:49 AM

    Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for your great blog post in helping get the word out to librarians!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ElizabethDecember 10, 2012 at 9:21 AM

    Your welcome. I think the students of Louisiana deserve a great education, and it can't happen with out school libraries.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousDecember 10, 2012 at 11:40 AM

    This is utterly appalling. I am a librarian at a community college, and I can't tell you how many times a student has told me that they've never set foot in a library before. Yes, there is a great deal of information available online, but this only compounds the issue with information overload. And then there's the false assumption that everything is available online - not even close! Too many students want to just google their topics and take the first hits; the result is usually garbage. The need for information literacy instruction is greater now than ever before. Students who are exposed to libraries and librarians at the elementary and secondary levels make much better college students, or, if they don't go on to college, better informed/educated citizens in general. Information literacy transcends ALL disciplines and professions. We teach them how to fish, and which are the keepers and which are not!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Carla ClarkDecember 12, 2012 at 2:47 PM

    Thank you for posting this. I have just added it to my Facebook wall, with this comment:

    Friends and family in Louisiana, I strongly encourage you to read the Loud Librarian's blog post, and to contact your BESE representative as she suggests. BESE is considering revisions that would basically allow elementary and middle schools to eliminate libraries.

    Because teaching children to read, and providing them with stuff to read (particularly low-income students whose families don't have the luxury of providng books in the home) is apparently not a high priority.

    Bad enough that we have scaled back so dramatically (pardon the pun) on art and music and physical education programs. What next? No need for textbooks, we'll just provide links to Google? And science experiments? We can just watch some YouTube videos of guys popping Mentos in Diet Coke.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Holidays from BRiMS and Bookmarked

I run two book groups at Patrick Taylor. My high school book group, Bookmarked , was created in the fall of 2007 which was my second year as librarian at the school. The students really wanted a library club, but the square footage of the library was so small that I could not imagine how any students could do any actual library work. Instead I created a book discussion group. Not only did we meet to talk books, but I tapped these students to help me with fundraisers and special programming like Teen Read Week. Helping me with these special activities seemed to appease the members. I waited until February of 2009 to institute a book discussion group for my middle school students called BRiMS, or Books Rule in Middle School . Both of the groups meet during lunch, and this year, the school added a third lunch. Now BRiMS is made up of only 6th and 7th graders. Bookmarked has 8th-12th grade students. This has actually worked well because in 2014 and 2015, Bookmarked lost a lot of members w...
Read more

Banned Book Week: Students Make Comments Pro & Con Censorship

Image
This blog post is being designed as a lesson for the English I students at PFTSTA. The teachers and I have collaborated on an activity to celebrate Banned Book Week (BBW). Many times in the past during BBW, I have invited the 8th graders into the library to discuss the banning and challenging of books in schools and libraries. I usually show some videos and share books owned by our library that have been banned or challenged somewhere in the US. This activity always spurs great discussion among the students and teachers. This year we wanted the students to create a written response to the presentation. We thought there was a real world connection if we had the students post their opinion online as a comment to someone writing about censorship in schools. The teachers and I want the students to learn how to compose a well thought out comment that is supported by evidence and concrete details. How more real world could it be than having the students comment directly on their librar...
Read more

Students Weigh in on Banned Books and the Freedom to Read

Image
Every year, for Banned Book Week, I prepare a lesson for our 8th graders. It was always teacher directed with discussion until last year . The English I teachers and I created a lesson for the students that included research and writing. I pulled the materials that I wanted them to read, and the students would write a very short essay declaring their belief in the need for teens to be able to exercise their freedom to read what they want to or the need for certain books to be taken off the shelves of the library or pulled from the English curriculum.  Above is the slide presentation that I have made for the students. Included in the slides are several videos that I thought would get the students thinking. There are slides with links to specific articles that we want the students to read and use for the concrete evidence to support their stance. A rubric is included at the end so the students know exactly what is expected. The teachers and I want the writing to have a...
Read more