Superintendent John Deasy. Image courtesy of LAUSD.
School libraries across Los Angeles may soon have their doors opened again now that Los Angeles Unified School District (LASUD) Superintendent John Deasy’s budget proposal of approximately $6.64 billion passed June 24 “will more than double the number of new teachers to 1,200, increase librarians, nurses, and counselors, reduce class sizes, increase tutoring and improve parent education efforts,” according to the Los Angeles Times. The budget represents the largest bump in funds since the 2008 recession, when the district laid off over 10,000 employees and cut services and programs.
On the table is the possibility to restore school library services to every elementary and middle school in LAUSD for the 2014-2015 school year. However, libraries would not be open every day—nor would they all have certified school librarians staffing their libraries.
“The proposed LAUSD budget would provide three-hour library aides to all elementary schools,” says Monica Carazo, a public information officer for LAUSD by email (before the June 24 budget proposal passage). “As for the middle schools, the proposed 15 full-time employees would not restore teacher librarians to all the middle schools.”
With the 2014-15 budget has been passed, Carazo updated SLJ with the following information via email (on July 8) about school librarian hires for the upcoming year and provided the following statement:
“All in all, the staffing of school libraries in LAUSD is going in the right direction.”
In a July 8 email from Carazo, she described the breakdown of the 2014-15 budget, and how it would affect school librarian positions:
High Schools (including span schools with high schools, e.g., Grades 6-12, K-12 schools): Total 84 schools of which 13 have a shared Teacher Librarian (TL). The shared TL works full days at a school, usually on a 2 day/3 day rotating basis over a 2-week period. The TL does not drive between schools on the same day. This is a reflection of the increase in the number of 1.0 TL FTEs at the high school level.
Middle Schools: 15 TL positions will be Centrally-funded (i.e., District pays for the position rather than the school). These 15 TLs will each be assigned to a specific Middle School (MS) on a 1.0 FTE basis. The list is in development based on need. At this point, I (Carazo) do not know if there is an overlap between the 15 1.0 MS TL FTEs and the approximately 17 MS TL positions purchased by individual schools during their budget deliberations in the spring. The Budget also showed plans for hiring 25 more MS TLs in 2015-16 and 10 more in 2016-17.
Elementary Schools: The District will be purchasing the equivalent of a 3-hour library aide for each of our 512 elementary schools. In the late 1990s, the Board of Education passed a resolution calling for 3-hour library aides to staff the elementary libraries. These positions soon turned into 6-hour positions. The decision to return the 3-hour library aide position to the elementary libraries brings the District back to the original starting point. Unknown at the moment is whether some of the elementary schools will purchase additional hours of library aide time over this basic allotment.
Prior to the budget passing on June 24, LAUSD had 349 library aide positions—with just 40 paid for by the district—to support the 18 primary centers, 469 elementary schools, 85 middle schools, 84 high schools and 28 span schools where various grades are at one site, according to statistics provided by LAUSD. The newly passed budget is meant to staff library aides at every lower grade school.
In an earlier exchange with SLJ prior to the budget passing, Carazo said, “We [at LAUSD] do have a shortage of teacher librarians at present. And so the 15 new full-time teacher librarian positions would probably be new hires.”
Not addressed are LAUSD’s high schools which currently have teacher librarians on staff “although not all are full time,” says Carazo. Still, Deasy’s proposal is a part of “continued steps in restoring library service to all our schools,” says she.
Yet Lynne Michaels, a former LAUSD teacher librarian with 30 years in the position, and now retired and living in Las Vegas, is saddened to hear that school libraries would be re-opened with aides rather than “credentialed personnel,” says Michaels by email.
She further notes that “an aide, no matter how competent, cannot provide the same level of instruction as a credentialed librarian/media specialist who holds a four-year degree plus extra college training for both a credential and a Master’s in Library Science.”
To her it’s a question of economics—with not enough librarians on staff in a district to have much leverage at the bargaining table. The number of school librarians have significantly dwindled over five years from 1,253 in the 2007-2008 school year to 804 in the 2012-2013 school year, according to the California Department of Education.
“I think the crux of the matter is that aides receive less salary, because librarians, with their advanced education and usually tenure and placement on the salary schedule in a district, are much more expensive than classified personnel,” says Michaels. “But as the old saying goes, ’Penny wise and pound foolish,‘ and unfortunately, the school districts will get what they pay for.”