The Olympian: 2008 January 22
Diane Huber
Teacher-librarians are backing a bill that would protect school libraries from the budget chopping block.
That's because today's librarians do much more than check out books — they help students navigate the wealth of information online, said Steve Coker, teacher-librarian at Rainier High School.
"Libraries are more relevant now then they ever have been in the sense that ... students who don't learn to process and evaluate the information they encounter in their lives are at a real disadvantage," he said.
Coker is set to testify today in support of Senate Bill 6380, which would provide state funding — $12 per student — for materials, and require a certain number of certified-teacher librarians based on the size of the district.
Washington is one of the few states that doesn't fund school libraries; rather, libraries are supported by local levy dollars. As a result, districts around the state have cut library positions to balance their budgets. Federal Way cut 20 librarian positions last year, and Spokane reduced 10 librarians to half-time. In response, a group of parents from the Spokane district banned together and are spearheading efforts for state funding for libraries.
So far, Thurston County school library programs have generally remained robust.
In the districts North Thurston Public Schools, the Olympia School District, the Tumwater School District and the Yelm School District have half-time or full-time certified teacher-librarians at all schools.
Some of the smaller districts, including Rainier and Rochester, have one teacher-librarian at the high school who serves the entire district.
Yelm Superintendent Alan Burke said teacher-librarian hours were reduced from full-time in the late 1990s because of budget cuts.
All eight Thurston County districts have maintenance and operations levies on the Feb. 19 ballot. Marianne Hunter, teacher-librarian at Timberline High School and president of the Washington Library Media Association, fears if levies fail, districts will look to cut librarians.
She said elementary-school librarians were reduced in the North Thurston schools after a levy failure in 1995-96.
"We've slowly been recovering from that," she said.
The library bill would mandate two certified teacher-librarians in Rainier, which has just under 1,000 students, and three at Rochester, which has about 2,000 students. For districts with 2,000 or more students, the bill would require one full-time librarian for every 700 students.
Districts also hire aides to help staff the library, but bill backers say students benefit from trained teachers who teach skills such as how to effectively search databases such as Google and how to evaluate the credibility of online sources.
"They're truly life skills," Hunter said. "Everybody needs to be able to access information and, even more importantly, make judgements about whether it's valid information. We're teaching kids to use technology to work for them," she said.
The Seattle Times contributed to this report.
