The Rescuers
Renee Olson -- School Library Journal, 1/1/1999
photographs by Blake Fitch
Seventh grader Raquel Contreras and Terezka Jirasek, library media specialist, at the John Spry Community School
In Little Village, a neighborhood of mostly Hispanic families in southwestern Chicago, there's an elementary school whose library has recently doubled in size. Ramona, the mischievous storybook sprite, frolics on freshly painted sky-blue walls, students clamor to be "junior librarians," and the school's principal volunteers to spend the night in her office so that students can have a sleepover in the library.
Nirvana, you wonder?
Well, it's close. Especially since the library at the John Spry Community School is in an urban school district that's still in the early stages of reviving itself.
What makes the story even more meaningful is that Library Media Specialist Terezka Jirasek has managed, with district-level help, to turn her library around in a troubled school where less than a quarter of third-graders are reading at grade level.
Jirasek is one of many new rescuers in the country's third-largest school district, a sprawling system that then-Secretary of Education William Bennett called the worst school system in the country in the late 1980s. After a string of short-lived superintendents, festering labor problems, and abysmal test scores, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley finally took control of the district in 1995. In came a reform-minded school board and a "Children First" initiative that ended the practice of promoting failing students to the next grade and put a heavy emphasis on homework.
The wide-ranging educational initiative, whose aim is to boost academic achievement for the city's 430,000 students, also includes support for library improvement. So far, the board, chaired by Chicago attorney Gery J. Chico, has made good on its promise of making funds available to improve collections and has reopened the professional library at the district's central office for the first time in a decade.
Gery J. Chico, Chairman of the school reform board
In one of its most significant moves, the reform board filled the position of director of libraries and information services -- vacant for nearly a decade -- with Dr. Ann Weeks in 1996. Best known as the former executive director of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), Weeks isn't trying to fix the entire mess in this district just shy of 560 schools, at least not overnight. Instead, her approach is to turn a small number of libraries into model programs designed to generate envy among principals.
Weeks's techniques are varied. She's dispatched a posse of six veteran Chicago librarians who drive from school to school on a mission to reclaim libraries for students. See "Have Car Will Travel" She's doled out grants to a couple hundred libraries whose schools are required to match them, allowing librarians to rehab collections, renovate spaces, and rethink services. And she's set up a program that, in part, helps nudge reluctant principals into giving the green light to that often deferred school-library dream, flexible scheduling.
After spending the last 10 years assisting school districts to recreate libraries as coordinator of AASL's National Library Power Program, Weeks, an ambitious, politically savvy woman, has been able to cut to the chase in Chicago because she's seen what works and what doesn't.
Ann Weeks, Director of libraries and information services
Still, the speed at which the climate has changed for the better has surprised even Weeks. "What I have seen happen in Chicago in two years is absolutely incredible," she says, quickly adding that a lot of work remains to be done. Like Weeks, Chief Education Officer Dr. Cozette Buckney also envisions an uphill climb. "A number of schools don't have libraries," she explains. "They have a cart going down the hall. And at least 100 schools don't have certified librarians."
With a budget of only $2 million in a district whose fiscal year 1999 budget totals $3.4 billion, Weeks doesn't have much to work with, considering the state of test scores for reading comprehension. Just under 34 percent of Chicago's third- through eighth-graders read at the national norm. That's up from 23.5 percent before the reform process started. Compared to some of their bigger city cousins, Chicago still has a ways to go. Case in point: 49.6 percent of New York City's third- through eighth-graders are now reading at or above grade level.
Cozette Buckney, Chief education officer
As library media specialists well know, where you find underachieving readers, you'll find inadequate libraries -- an adage that holds true in Chicago. According to Weeks, the overwhelming majority of collections are out of date. After conducting a random survey of libraries, she found that in many schools the average publication date of science books was 1962, the same year astronaut John Glenn first went into space.
Useless books aren't the only holdover from the '60s-librarians' skills and programming techniques also date back 30 years in some cases, says Weeks. But people throughout the district are becoming aware of what needs to be updated. "That's a major step forward," she says.
Across the street from the country's largest housing project, the Robert Taylor Homes, sits Beasley Elementary School, with more than 1,200 students and one large, inadequately funded library media center.
Until last year, Dr. June Pembroke, Beasley's library media specialist, worked with the same materials budget she had 20 years ago-$6,000, or $4.20 per student. (For a harsh dose of reality, consider that the national average is $18.75 per student.) But when the reform board reopened the district's department of libraries, library media specialists like Pembroke discovered ways to increase their budgets for the first time in years, rather than relying solely on the largesse of principals and site-based management committees. In 1997, Pembroke, a warm, determined woman, took advantage of a new opportunity and landed a $21,000 grant from Weeks's office, which Pembroke's school matched with an additional $10,000. The funds allowed her to add lighting to a dimly lit, windowless room, reupholster the 20-year-old chairs, and add materials to her collection.
Pembroke's library wasn't the only one to benefit from the new grant funding. That same year, Weeks's office doled out some $1.1 million to more than 160 schools. By dipping into her department's annual funding, Weeks created two grant programs, one called Matching Grants for Library Collection Development, the other called Learning Power (Pembroke received the latter.) Based on the principles of the National Library Power Program, now winding down after a 10-year run, Chicago's Learning Power -- a grant program with serious strings attached -- is a fine study in the art of unsubtle persuasion. To accept a Learning Power grant, principals must first agree to match the funding. In 1997-98 that meant that Weeks's grant funding grew to $2.5 million once matching school funds were added. That's the easy part.
Principals must also consent to staff their libraries with one full-time librarian. Weeks, however, does allow them to get away with using a noncertified library media specialist.
Perhaps most alarming to the school administrative breed, however, is the fact that principals who accept a Learning Power grant must move toward flexible scheduling. (Similarly, high school principals must encourage collaboration between classroom teachers and librarians.)
In Pembroke's case that meant her principal had to release her from lunchroom duty so she could be available for students in the library throughout the day. Visibly pained by having a thinly staffed cafeteria, Beasley Principal Larry B. Grant says, "We're still feeling growing pains. It's been very difficult."
Pembroke isn't aware that other staff resent that she is the school's only nonadministrator in the building not required to be on lunchroom duty. But Gwen Hilary, Beasley's regional librarian, sympathizes with Grant. "He's had to be exceptionally strong," says Hilary, referring to the perception that the principal may be giving preferential treatment to a librarian. "Even though he's the administrator, you have to deal with morale and with attitudes."
"And resistance," Grant interjects.
"And he had to dig in there and say, `I know this is going to be good,'" adds Hilary.
As a classroom teacher during the late 1970s and '80s at Spry Community School, Mary Cavey had wished for a real library for the school's 900 students. Instead, what she inherited when she became principal in 1994 was a school set up to teach vocational skills -- complete with a sewing lab and radial-arm saws.
But instead of trying to wrest nonexistent funds from the district, Cavey and Library Media Specialist Terezka Jirasek sought corporate support to create the library they had long envisioned.
With a helping hand from the Chicago Area Focus Group, a business organization providing assistance to city schools, Cavey and Jirasek met with the partners of a local law firm, who, in turn, put them in touch with Joe Antunovich, an architect. But Antunovich is not just any architect: his firm designs bookstores for Barnes & Noble.
After Cavey agreed to give up the classroom next door, in order to double the library's space to 2,100 square feet, Antunovich and his firm drew up floor plans based on Cavey and Jirasek's vision. Once the plans were drawn up, the renovation took just one week over the winter holidays in December 1997. "We call it Miracle on Marshall Street," quips Jirasek. "We came back after winter break and it was done."
Contractors hired by Antunovich broke down the dividing wall, painted the walls the color of a sun-bathed sky trimmed in hues of cream and ripe raspberries, then installed the carpeting and fixtures. Without support from Antunovich and Barnes & Noble (which donated the bookshelves, a story stage, and wall decorations) it's unlikely this project would have gotten off the ground. To buy tables and chairs and add materials to her collection, as befitted the new surroundings, Jirasek rounded up district grants and matching funds from Spry totaling some $30,000. Jirasek is clear about the project's outcome, saying "It's been a resurrection."
Chicago is also strengthening its relations with a more traditional partner -- the Chicago Public Library (CPL), a system that has also dramatically improved through increased mayoral support during the past five years.
To enhance library services for students, Weeks's staff meets monthly with Liz Huntoon, CPL's director of children's services, and her staff. To make sure high school librarians and their branch counterparts know each other, the public library held a daylong workshop for both in October. Afterward, a librarian came up to Weeks and Huntoon to thank them profusely, saying, "How come we didn't think of this sooner?"
Instead of settling for a dump-and-run library program at the Wildwood School, perched on the northern edge of the city, Karen Percak used state money to add a computer lab to her small elementary school library. A bank of Macintosh computers now lines one wall, bookshelves line the other. Percak, who doubles as librarian and technology coordinator, has also used a Learning Power grant to perk up the room that Principal Elena Savoy once described as "drab and gray."
The transformation has been more than cosmetic: teachers are now seeking out Percak to help them work technology into the curriculum. "There's more of an open atmosphere here now," says second-grade teacher Evelyn Klott. "It's a revolving door all day."
This fall, Klott and Percak worked together on a map-making project. Percak recommended that the second-grade teacher try a software program called Neighborhood Map Machine. "The teachers need to come to me for technology help," says Percak, who, as a National Distinguished Apple Educator, comfortably straddles both print and wired worlds.
The Wildwood School, which caters to physically disabled students, is ahead of the majority of elementary schools in Chicago, since it already has a fast T1 connection to the Internet. Weeks estimates that only a third of elementary schools are wired for the Internet; high schools, however, are further ahead, with nearly all having connections. "That's going to change dramatically in the next year," says Weeks, referring to plans to wire the rest of the schools. That will give not-yet-wired schools, like Spry, access to online resources the rest of the district already has, such as Electric Library, Britannica Online, and Scholastic Network (resources that are funded by the Illinois State Board of Education and the district's department of libraries).
Even though the district's troubles have slowed the introduction of technology, the enormous need for training will probably delay its adoption just as effectively. "The biggest challenge to training is the sheer number of schools," says RenAce Payne, a technology consultant to the department of libraries. "Some people don't even know how to turn [a computer] on."
While Chicago's school reform process has helped usher in a new era for libraries, it hasn't turned everyone in the district into a library supporter. Like trying to take a favorite toy from a tired toddler at bedtime, loosening funds from principals' budgets still produces headaches for librarians throughout the district. This fall, one high school librarian, at wit's end, watched her principal keep sidestepping her request for funds to renew magazine subscriptions. "Why should my students have less because my principal won't fund the library?" she asks, an edge of exasperation in her voice.
Will Weeks's strategy of creating a set of utopian libraries for others to imitate lead to adequate library funding systemwide? Perhaps. At the very least, it's clear that as the district's chief savior for libraries, her infectious enthusiasm has already motivated a number of librarians and principals to act.
But Weeks realizes that relying on the goodwill of a handful of principals is no substitute for a required library budget for each school so that library media specialists aren't at the mercy of principals unconvinced of the need for libraries. That battle is on her agenda. For the short term, however, Weeks believes fundraising holds more promise -- and offers more potential revenue -- than making principals toe the line.
On behalf of the Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Library System (CLS) will launch a library fundraising campaign this month, designed to raise $20 million, or $35,000 per school. "There's absolutely no way the school system could put that kind of money in at once or even over a couple of years," says Weeks, who believes there is support for the campaign from the community and the corporate sector.
The idea for the campaign came from U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich (D-IL), who has become known on Capitol Hill as a school library supporter. "He said `Let's do something,'" says Alice Calabrese, executive director of CLS, a library cooperative that has retained two firms specializing in nonprofit fundraising to kick off the campaign.
Blagojevich's enthusiasm for library funding -- and his intolerance of out-of-date books -- has already shaken up the Windy City's cosmos. In September 1998, he donated his entire congressional pay raise, $2,140, to the city's school libraries, prompting the school board to immediately add $500,000 to Weeks's budget, which she plans to use for more matching grants.
Chief Education Officer Buckney explains that the board added the funds because "we realize we have an obligation here." The four-year educational reform process, which ends in July, has promised to reduce the drop-out rate, put standards in place, and increase test scores. "Clearly for those things to happen, in many cases, the libraries need to be involved," she says.
A successful fundraising campaign, however, won't be sniffed at by the district. "We're more than willing to take any contribution from anyplace else," says Buckney.
In a district that serves a significant portion (22 percent) of Illinois's entire population of public school students, the first lifeboats have been dispatched, coming to the aid of what Calabrese calls "totally demoralized" library media specialists. With a lifesaver in hand, Weeks seems confident that the rescue will continue, saying "We're just beginning to have a story to tell."
 The regional librarians: from left, Gwen Hilary, Diane L. Walker, Woodra A. Scott, Melva Bryant-Samuels, Barbara Fields, and Jacquelyn E. Crook |
Have Car, Will Travel |
| Week in and week out, six library media specialists in Chicago hit the highways to advise, commiserate, and inspire their colleagues.
Call them roving trainers. Call them mobile weeding experts. Call them traveling budget consultants. Call them tired. These six women, all former building-level librarians with at least 15 years of experience, act as a lifeline between the library media specialists in Chicago's nearly 600 public schools and the central department of libraries, headed by Dr. Ann Weeks and Rita Dawkins, the department's deputy director and supervisor of the roving crew. Lured by the prospect of job advancement in a system that had stagnated for years, Barbara Fields, Melva Bryant-Samuels, Jacquelyn Crook, Gwen Hilary, Woodra Scott, and Diane Walker left their secure library positions to become "regional librarians" in 1997. Loosely based on a similar arrangement in the Miami-Dade County public schools, the regional librarians each oversee some 100 schools in a particular region. To ensure they will reach all 100 without suffering coronary failure, they will concentrate on approximately a third of their schools each year for the next three years. The schools themselves dictate what the regional librarians end up doing. If it's an elementary school that's going to be automated, for instance, "there's no need to have books that are 200 years old," says Dawkins. In that case, the regional librarian goes in and weeds, along with the local librarian. For Weeks, there was no question that she needed to reintroduce Chicago to the concept of regional librarians. "I knew it would take me years to get to all the schools," she said, laughing. |
