Parents rally to save librarians

A group of Spokane parents and others have organized a petition to save elementary librarians from the chopping block next year.

While the group has collected more than 250 signatures in support of keeping full-time librarians in Spokane elementary schools, the effort seems to have come too late.

Under budget reductions expected to be recommended to the school board tonight, each of 10 Spokane elementary schools would have only a part-time librarian.

That’s one cut out of dozens the school district is considering to fill a budget gap that has grown to $10.8 million. While tonight’s recommendations won’t be final until the school board adopts a budget in August, district officials said they have already been given a nod from the board to move ahead with some reductions to school programs and staff, including librarians.

“There are things that we have to get into motion before teachers leave (for the summer),” said Mark Anderson, associate superintendent for school support services. “They have to know what their assignments are for next year.”

In March the district announced several budget options, and after months of community forums and planning, the board will hear the final recommendations from Superintendent Brian Benzel.

Benzel, who is retiring this year, returned from medical leave this week.

Some of the reductions on his list include:

“eliminating all after-school sports programs for elementary students;

“reducing central office staff;

“reducing custodial staff by 16 positions; three custodians would be laid off while the rest of the positions would be reduced through attrition;

“eliminating some special education support positions and reducing others to half time;

“reducing classes offered by Spokane Virtual Learning;

“adjusting some attendance boundaries to reduce transportation costs.

The school board voted in April to close Pratt Elementary School and earlier this year asked every school district department to cut five percent from its budget.

While the Legislature approved a budget this biennium that provided $17.5 million more for Spokane students next year, that money provided little relief for Spokane’s budget problems, Anderson said.

Only $690,000 of that new money will help with funding core programs that are currently being paid out of the school district’s levy, Anderson said. The rest will pay for new state-mandated programs, such as full-day kindergarten in five Spokane schools this fall.

However, the district expects to spend $300,000 out of the levy to implement full-day kindergarten at Holmes, Bemiss, Logan, Regal and Stevens elementary schools. The state will not provide enough money to cover the full cost of the new program, including furniture for more students and curriculum, Anderson said.

“None of the new programs are bad, but it’s micromanagement at the state level,” Anderson said. “The Legislature decided to invest in new programs instead of fixing what they already had.”

The district already made a decision last month to spare middle-school librarians from the budget ax. Other programs that were spared include a day-care center for teen moms and freshman athletics.

There are already five schools that currently have half-time librarians out of the district’s 35 elementary schools, district officials said.

Reducing some schools to half-time library is needed because of the decline in enrollment in those schools, Anderson said.

The 10 additional schools that will lose a full-time librarian next year are Balboa, Garfield, Grant, Holmes, Indian Trail, Linwood, Ridgeview, Roosevelt, Westview, and Woodridge.

“Equity-wise, those schools were getting more than most of our schools,” such as library two days a week instead of one, Anderson said.

That is of little comfort to the parents who are rallying to keep the librarians in elementary schools full time.

“At this age level is where kids really begin to learn how to gather information and how to evaluate it,” said parent Susan McBurney. “They learn how to sift through all that’s out there, and they develop the critical thinking skills.”

Now librarians will spend their time buying and organizing books, rather than helping students, parents argued.

“The background that the students get at the elementary – they are not going to be prepared for the skills that we are ready to teach them at middle school,” said Dinah Coble, the librarian at Sacajawea Middle School. “I feel that this cut is very detrimental to our students.”