Canned in Kalamazoo
Under pressure to shave costs, 11 schools vote to eliminate their librarians
Staff -- School Library Journal, 7/1/2000
Site-based management has claimed more library victims. This time the cuts are in Kalamazoo, MI, where 11 of 18elementary schools decided they won't require a librarian in the coming year. The cuts were approved by the Board of Education last month.
The dismissals came in response to a mandate from the central office that each school cut two percent of its budget to help cover a $2-million district shortfall. For the first time this year, Kalamazoo put a big part of that responsibility in the hands of principals and their school teams, made up of teachers and parents. Around the country, such teams are increasingly responsible for deciding how schools spend money, and in many cases they are opting to cut librarians and materials budgets.
In Kalamazoo, what may have hurt elementary librarians is the fact that most worked part time, leaving them little time to develop their programs, says Kevin Campbell, a principal whose school decided to cut its librarian. In addition, since the district eliminated its library coordinator several years ago, school libraries have lacked "someone having a vision and helping that vision get going," Campbell says. The librarian at his school, for instance, worked only two-and-a-half days a week. "She had to fly in and do a half-hour lesson, with no time for planning with teachers," Campbell says.
Kalamazoo principals had few choices of where to cut. They could not, for instance, cut music, art, or gym, because the union contract requires those "special" teachers to provide planning time for colleagues. Librarians, however, don't provide planning time.
Still, the 11 librarians won't necessarily be out of work. Depending on seniority, some will fill classroom vacancies, while others may move to libraries vacated by newer librarians.
That's small comfort to Sheri Kurtyak, who moved to Kalamazoo three years ago from Illinois. Kurtyak's school voted to keep its librarian--she was there five days a week--but Kurtyak herself has low seniority and will probably be transferred. Besides sprucing up the library with curtains, beanbag chairs, and silk plants, Kurtyak extended library time for older students from half an hour to 90 minutes a week. She feels the culture of the school has changed during her tenure, becoming more library-friendly. "When I first got here," says Kurtyak, "I had classes that would not come to the library." Now she wonders what will happen when she's gone.--Andrea Glick
