Almost a dozen Dallas schools will soon no longer have a librarian.Among them are four high schools -- Roosevelt, Lincoln, A. Maceo Smith New Tech and Gilliam Collegiate Academy. So are three middle schools in the district’s ACE turnaround program: Edison, Rusk and Zumwalt.School officials say it's the result of drastic budget cuts as the district scrapes around to make up for a $60 million shortfall next year. The changes will save $2 million.No librarians will be laid off. Instead, they will be shuffled to fill vacant positions at other schools, leaving 11 campuses without librarians for the 2017-18 school year.The decision, which rests with Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, effectively shaves 31 librarians off the books in a school district of nearly 14,000 professionals.Stephanie Elizalde, DISD’s chief of school leadership, said reducing the number of librarians is part of an effort to cut the budget without directly affecting the classroom.“The struggle for me is that if I don’t find enough money for this cut, do I cut more teachers?” she said. “At some point, I have to find a way to balance the budget. ... It’s a no-fun place to be.”But the district’s librarians fear it is a sign that dedication to staffing libraries is waning. Some urban districts strapped by financial challenges -- such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia -- have been whittling away for years.Even with the changes, DISD -- Texas’ second-largest district -- will have the most professional librarians in the state, 199, according to figures from the Texas Education Agency. The largest district, Houston ISD, has only 66, down from 169 in 2009.Unlike some states, Texas does not require schools to have trained librarians.When budgets get tight, said Becky Calzada, library coordinator for Leander ISD and chair of the Texas Association of School Librarians, “support staff” such as librarians, nurses and counselors are deemed nonessential. DISD is adjusting its staffing formula for nurses as well.Last week, Calzada testified to the Texas Senate education committee in favor of a bill -- co-sponsored by Sen. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, and Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville -- that would require parental notification when a public or charter school lacks a librarian, nurse or counselor.Since the Legislature made $5.4 billion in education cuts in 2011, Texas has seen a 3 percent decline in school librarians, despite 7 percent growth in its student population.‘Essential backup’Under the Dallas district’s new staffing formula, most middle and high school campuses with 750 or fewer students will staff their libraries with a single paraprofessional, as opposed to a trained librarian.For the district’s largest campuses, current staffing levels will be reduced to one librarian and one assistant, cutting as many as three additional positions at some campuses.No elementary schools will be affected.“When you are a teacher at an elementary, the librarian is a very big part of the process. There are times where the teacher leaves the student with the librarian,” Elizalde said. “At the secondary level, you take your students as part of your class.“I don’t disagree that it’s an important position. But in all cases, I have to look at what position is least directly providing services on a day-to-day basis for students.”Hobie Hukill, a member of the Dallas Association of School Librarians and one of two librarians at Samuell High School, called that line of reasoning myopic.Not only do secondary librarians build rapport with students to encourage reading, they help students with research techniques and work with teachers and staff to acquire materials they need for their classes, Hukill said.“We provide that backup, essential backup, to help get these kids into college and to be able to do the work once they’re there,” Hukill said. “And we are one of the few places in the campus that isn’t obsessed with test preparation. We’re obsessed with free reading -- building that love of reading, and getting students to understand how it impacts the whole rest of their lives.”But both Hukill and Dallas librarians association vice president Valerie Tagoe said there’s been a shift in DISD over the past decade at the secondary level, with teachers relying on librarians less and less.Under former Superintendent Mike Miles, “They saw any instructional time out of the classroom was a bad thing,” said Tagoe, a librarian at Woodrow Wilson High School and one of the employees affected. “But what they have to realize is that the library is a classroom. It’s about contributing to the academic progress of the students, and that’s why we are here: to contribute to their learning and help connect them to the academic resources that they need to be successful. It’s been hard to move away from that.”Audrey Church, president of the American Association of School Librarians, said that in today’s information age, librarians are needed “now more than ever.”“You have to be information literate, you have to be digitally literate, in order to succeed,” Church said. “I think you’ve seen more and more over the past six to eight months the importance to determine fact from fiction, point of view and bias, the importance of triangulating your sources and going to reputable sources for information and be able to judge what you’ve found.“School librarians are trained to teach those skills. When we cut positions, we are really doing our children a disservice.”‘A place of hope’Sergio Jaimes, a senior at Adamson High School, which would have only one librarian after the changes, spoke out against cuts at a March school board meeting. He said the idea of one professional managing a library for the 1,500 students at Adamson “doesn’t seem plausible.”“By going to the library, we find a place of hope,” Jaimes said. “There’s hope that we can go to college; there’s hope that we can do great.”DISD’s Elizalde said she has not given up hope on rethinking library staffing in future budgets. She also will remind principals that media assistants assigned to schools should actually work in the library.A survey by the Dallas librarians association found that a majority of the district’s library assistants have been assigned duties that pull them away from their original role.In instances where only an assistant is available, teachers might receive additional training to guarantee that they can properly help students with research, Elizalde added.‘Getting the lesser’Tucked into a corner on the east side of campus, the library at Roosevelt High School is bright and welcoming.It shows a little wear -- just like the rest of the school, which is slated for replacement under the new bond package. But it’s easy to see that the space is well-tended by its librarian, Muriel Johnson-Redd, with its front desk festooned in spring colors, a well-organized reference area to the right, and plenty of computer workstations throughout the small room.Next school year, Johnson-Redd probably won’t be there to help Roosevelt’s students.Johnson-Redd and the school’s principal declined to talk for this report, saying they needed approval from the district to do so. But Roosevelt PTA president Latasha Witherspoon noted that the school is already getting less-experienced first- and second-year teachers who “don’t have the knowledge and the understanding of this school’s history that our librarian does.”“That’s unfortunate for our students, just because they happen to attend a school with lower enrollment,” she said. “They’re getting the lesser every time, and that can’t help but affect our students.”_________________________________Here are the 11 Dallas ISD campuses that will not have librarians for the 2017-18 school year: A. Maceo Smith New Tech High SchoolLincoln High SchoolRoosevelt High SchoolCary Middle SchoolHolmes Middle SchoolRusk Middle SchoolBoude Storey Middle SchoolZumwalt Middle SchoolLongfellow Middle SchoolEdison Learning CenterKathlyn Joy Gilliam Collegiate Academy Continue reading...
Facing Big Budget Cuts, Librarians to Get the Boot From Almost a Dozen Dallas ISD Schools
Copyright The Dallas Morning News