Advocacy+-+The+Problem

//Advocacy for professionally staffed libraries in every school// ** THE PROBLEM… **

Indian River school libraries draw ire
===With only three full-time librarians left -- one each at Indian River High School and North Georgetown and Georgetown elementary schools -- the remaining facilities are run by part-time paraprofessionals. The district reassigned several librarians to teaching positions after facing hefty budget cuts for fiscal 2011…… === COMMENT: As a former IR librarian, I can verify that the librarians are **not** in both high schools and that it was left up to the individual principals....but why so many got rid of librarians? IRHS, Georgetown Elem and N. Georgetown Elem are the only schools that had principals that saw beyond the money and felt that that was a well spent "unit". You can see even though the librarians went to the board meeting and gave them statistics and documentation, the IR superintendent doesn't even "get it" or doesn't want to. So the teaching of database, book talks and other important skills for all students (who are now to be taught college bound skills) are left up to the over burdened classroom teacher! Sue McKone

Cape Henlopen
In Cape none of our 4 elementary schools or 2 middle schools - Mariner Middle and Beacon Middle - have professional librarians. Kathy Lindemer

Milford no longer has a librarian at their middle school – Lost a grade to the new 8-9th grade academy thus less students. The principal wants a librarian, but has been unable to find a way to fund it. Barbara Fitzpatrick
 * Milford **

Brandywine
Springer Middle School has lost its librarian.

Seaford
Only one of four elementary school in Seaford District have librarians. The other 3 schools are staffed by paras who are 3 experienced, capable people -- but they're making para's pay for a librarian's work.

** WHAT YOU CAN DO…. ** ** Recommendations from Marilyn Kulkarni ** We do have to get the message across skillfully. I have been to a couple of workshops on advocacy and working to get our stories out there. I hope that through DSLMA we can work together to get our message across as a unified body. If you would like to work on advocacy and telling our stories it would be great to have you as members in our association. We will be discussing these topics at our meetings. Hopefully you can come online with us. It is very simple and I will be sending out an email for our next meeting November 8th at 4:00 on Elluminate. You need to have a computer and a mike and it’s great.


 * We must be the model librarians, or as close to it, as the studies say are valuable. Reading to students, boosting circulation, doing nice craft projects, will not have the desired effect. We must understand and teach the skills outlined in the AASL standards. Print them out here for free. @http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/learningstandards/standards.cfm
 * An AASL committee is making a crosswalk between the AASL standards and the Common Core standards. This is an ongoing project and I am on the committee. Our deadline for submissions was last week. I am not sure when these will be released but hopefully it will be soon. Use this document to show your administrators your worth. They do not know what we do, or can do. We have to show them and not just on paper.
 * We have to prove our worth through data. Just as location is the most important factor in buying a house, DATA is the most important in teaching today. How do we impact student learning and how do we measure it? This WILL become part of your DPAS evaluation. There is no way around that. A factor of RTTT is that all educators must have a substantial portion of their evaluation based on student data. The evaluations that will be created will be based on AASL standards. What kind of data matters? NOT circulation. How many times have you taken out a book and not had a chance to finish it. And that can easily be fudged. What you need are results on pre and post tests on tests like www.trails-9.org ? These tests are available for grades 3, 6, 9 and 12 and are updated regularly. If you have any suggestions for standardized testing instruments for library and information skills, please let me know.
 * We must do professional development in our field. Would you want a doctor who treated you the way he/she was taught back in the 1970s and 1980s? I doubt it. Well, that's what many of us have done. I love to tell stories to kids and see their faces light up. I know that is an important part of our jobs but we must also see their faces light up when they produce a powerpoint presentation using cited sources and upload it to a school website. We must have them contributing to blogs, adding content to wikis, having discussions with students in other parts of the world. This is all part of our curriculum that many of us fail to address. And don't say you or the kids don't have computers to use. That's what we have to help them find, at home or at the public library, if not at school.
 * Join your professional organizations. DSLMA is not expensive. @http://www.udel.edu/erc/dslma/membership.html Join us and make your voice heard. And, if possible, join AASL. I have gotten so much out of the meetings I have gone to as a rep for DSLMA. @http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aboutaasl/aaslmembership/aaslmembership.cfm . If you can't join AASL at least look at the public parts of the website for ideas.
 * Work with your colleagues in the school. If you are a leader in your school they will miss a lot more than the peon who checks out books if they lose you. We should fight to be included in every area of the curriculum, not just with the specialists.
 * Work with the PTA or other parent organization if you are threatened. This was done extremely effectively in Washington in 2008 @http://ilovelibraries.org/news/topstories/washrally.cfm
 * Join LM_NET. This group is there to help every librarian with questions, have lively discussions of issues and help you in so many ways. @http://lmnet.wordpress.com/subscribe/ If it is too much mail for you you can subscribe to the digest.

**Marilyn's PowerPoint on Advocacy**

** MORE ADVOCACY SUGGESTIONS **

** Tools you can use: **

View and show this video by Joyce Valenza, well known as a school library pioneer and regular contributor to School Library Journal. __What librarians make. Or Why Should I be More than a Librarian?__ @http://vimeo.com/17247140 ALA | **Advocacy Toolkit** (**AASL**) A collection of ready-to-use tools to conduct an **advocacy** campaign--large or small--for school library media programs.

I think that the idea of making a presentation to Dr. Lowery is an excellent one, but I'm glad Marilyn is reminding us to be organized and professional. Parents and students could be included - ? The quote from Obama (bottom of Christine's email) reminded my para and myself that we should also contact VP Biden. He and his wife should both be strong allies. Patricia C. Farley

I've been thinking the same thing, about contacting VP Biden. How should we do that? One letter from DSLMA? Bonnie Varrato

Couldn't the PTAs in your district organize some type of protest or at least write letters to the superintendent and school board members. Parents are more effective than teachers or librarians when comes to making things happen is a school district. The librarians at Appoquinimink want to help, just please advise what to do. Good luck, Maria Gregors

Marilyn as president of DSLMA and Ed as Vice President should coordinate any contact with Sec. Lowry. We must present ourselves as the professionals that we are. Plus, Ed has worked with Sec. Lowry at the District level and they are on a first-name basis. She listens to him and respects what he has to say. That will be a big plus. Radinson Maria

On behalf of the DSLMA I sent a letter to Susan Banting at IRSD. I also replied to the article in the News Journal. I suggest we all do the same as parents, taxpayers and as professionals who may lose our own jobs if this trend continues. I am most worried for the students who will come out of school more ill-prepared to face information overload with no coping skills. Marilyn Kulkarni

I agree with going national. Let’s do it! I have already written to the News Journal and to all of the school board members and Superintendent in IR. Christine Payne

More Questions
==== I'd like to add my comments to support school librarians. As Vice President/President Elect of the Delaware School Library Association, this issue is extremely important to all of us, in Delaware and across the Nation. One question that hasn't been asked yet is: How will school districts respond to their accrediting agencies, such as the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools when asked why their schools do not have school libraries? Could their accreditation be in jeopardy, especially at the high schools? I've been a Middle States evaluator of school libraries and I know the importance of having a strong library program to the outcome of an evaluation. Maybe that has all changed. ====

====The loss of full-time, professionally trained, certified school librarians anywhere in this country is appalling and has implications that will cause long-term disruption to all of our educational systems. As districts in Delaware and the rest of our Nation react to and blame funding for the loss of these professionals, can we say, in good conscience, that it will have no impact on our future? It will cause enduring problems. ==== ==== The effects of not having full time librarians at the elementary and middle schools are severely felt now when students arrive at high school. Elementary and middle school libraries throughout the state are on fixed schedules, are half-time, or worse, closed. Without basic information literacy skills; such as understanding search strategies, location of information resources, and engaging the information to produce new personal knowledge in context, high school students are extremely handicapped when assigned independent research projects. The continued lack of 21st century information skills is now being passed on to post-secondary institutions as more and more elementary and secondary institutions eliminate professionally certified school librarians who teach these skills. ==== ==== Another issue is that school librarians are also certified teachers, with advanced degrees, who teach information literacy skills in a specialized “lab” called the school library. They teach these skills as outlined by their professional association, the American Association of School Librarians. These new skills, Standards for the 21stCentury Learner, are strongly supported by the Delaware Recommended Curriculum (ELA Standard 3) and the Common Core State Standards (p. 4), as research process skills. They are taught in collaboration with core subject-area teachers. To remove the teaching of these skills from our curriculum is to deny students the information literacy skills they need to be productive members of our society. Just as Math and Science have required skills and specialized labs, so do English and the Social Sciences. The school library is the “learning lab” for English, Social Sciences, and the Humanities. Should any of these important labs be taught by unqualified instructors? ==== ==== Both of these issues are caused by 19th and 20th century stereotypes of school librarians and by a lack of understanding by teachers and administrators of the value of the school library program. Today's school librarian does more than checkout books, dust the shelves, and shush unruly students. Very few have their hair in a bun, wear half-glasses, granny shoes, and hand-knitted cardigans. They are an effective and integral part of a student's 21st century education. They are information specialists with a background knowledge of instructional technology and pedagogy. They are highly trained researchers and school curriculum experts. They have strong connections to their professional associations to remain current in their field. Still, hey are largely misunderstood by teachers and administrators. ==== ==== In very few cases nationally, teacher education programs at our universities do not address the role of the school librarian as a co-teacher, instructional leader, or collaborator. If collaboration is mentioned at all in pre-service courses for teachers, it is teacher peer-to-peer, excluding the school librarian. If our nations future teachers did not have strong library programs in their schools, why would we expect them to collaborate? They don't know the value of the librarian. If future teachers had poor library programs, it may fully rest on the school administration, and in very few cases, nationally, coursework that defines the role of the school librarian for school administrators is also severely lacking, even though the school librarian is a certified faculty member. Why would we expect school administrators to properly evaluate school librarians and library programs to require strong school libraries? ==== ==== The answer is very simple: our students need it! Where will they learn how to inquire, think critically, gain knowledge, draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations to create new knowledge, share that knowledge, participate ethically as productive members of our democratic society, and pursue personal and aesthetic growth? That answer is even more simple: from our professionally trained, certified school librarians in strong school library programs and in collaboration with other educators, because that's what we do! ====

**<span style="font-family: garamond,serif;">Delcastle Technical High School **
** FROM THE MEDIA…. ** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">School Libraries to Benefit from Race to the Top Awards 04/10/2010 School Library Journal <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">“With Delaware’s expected share to be approximately $100 million, the state will distribute 50 percent to its 19 school districts and 18 charter schools, with libraries—while not spelled out specifically in Delaware’s application—likely to play a significant role in the way schools spend their funds. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">“We look at our school libraries as the nucleus of our school buildings,” says Dan Cruce, deputy secretary and chief of staff for the Delaware Department of Education. “If we want to talk about school reform, we want to start there.” <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">While Cruce notes that schools are not mandated to spend a certain amount on school libraries, he says the department will be looking specifically at how districts incorporate school libraries as they submit preliminary proposals to the state over the next 90 days.”