As a new parent at the Hadley (MA) Elementary School in 2012, Melissa DeFilippi volunteered to help out at the school library—and discovered that she and other volunteers were acting as the de facto librarian. In between shelving books and helping children find material, DeFilippi started a district-wide movement that’s leading to the rehiring of librarians in the middle and high school and a new catalog for the three elementary schools in Swampscott, MA.
“I just assumed we were there to assist the librarian,” says DeFillipi, a mother of two, adjunct professor, and corporate trainer. “But when I got there I found we were the librarian, there wasn’t a card cataloging system, and someone just took a label maker and put categories on shelves.”
DeFilliipi started her mission by talking with the president and other members of the PTA. She then reached out to principals at the district’s two other elementary schools about whether the PTA could at least pay for a proper catalog. Parents pushed back, asking why the school wouldn’t cover the cost, and then questioned the need for a school library at all.
“They were saying, ‘Kids don’t use libraries anyway, they do their research on the Internet,’” she says. “I was really disappointed.”
Time passed and a new district budget came into play, cutting the middle and high school librarians for the 2013/2014 school year—the very opposite of what DeFillipi was advocating. But a new superintendent was coming into office, Pamela Angelakis, and DeFilippi crossed her fingers she might find a new friend. She did.
“She was very supportive,” says DeFilippi. “She said we would have to get principals on board as well, and present to the school committee, our school board.”
DeFilippi used public sentiment and state school rankings to her advantage, and Boston Magazine’s annual report on “The Best Schools in Boston” to drive her argument. Swampscott High School had been ranked 49th in September 2012. By 2013, it had slipped to 66. There was “a lot of outrage in town,” DeFilippi says. “The timing was right.”
To arm herself further, DeFilippi called each the 65 superintendents of Massachusetts school systems that had scored higher than Swampscott. Hearing back from 68 percent of them, DeFilippi discovered her district was the only one without a licensed librarian at the high school, and one of two that didn’t have staffing at the middle and elementary schools.
“That was the information I need to squash the assumption that everyone was getting rid of their librarians,” she says.
Today, Angelkis has put forth a budget that includes paraprofessionals at the elementary schools, pending teachers union approval, and certified librarians at both the middle and high schools for the 2014-2015 school year.
“I see the need for our high school kids to have access to this beautiful facility to do research and be guided by a professional,” says Angelakis. “It shouldn’t be a holding place and a study hall.”
Though DeFilippi had hoped for K-6 certified school librarians, the three elementary schools are getting a cataloging system paid for by their PTAs that’s set to be installed this year.
“I would love to have librarians in there by September, but we can’t do that,” she says.
But Swampscott isn’t done. A proposal to build a new merged elementary school is currently with architects. And Angelakis is directing them to include a media center .
“We’re designing a beautiful media center,” says Angelakis. “And to have it be unstaffed would be an embarrassment.”