Mesa (AZ) School Board Votes to Eliminate School Librarians

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By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 6/25/2008 2:05:00 PM

Despite last-ditch efforts by library supporters, the Mesa Public School Board in Arizona voted this week to eliminate all teacher librarians over a three-year period.

As a result, one-third of the schools in Mesa will not have media specialists in the 2008–2009 school year. This includes Westwood High School, which has an International Baccalaureate program that involves students completing a difficult senior thesis that typically involves working with the school librarian, says Ann Dutton Ewbank, a librarian at Arizona State University and the key organizer of the Fund Our Future Arizona movement to save the district’s media specialists.

“We will be monitoring Mesa Public Schools next year closely, and will continue to advocate for teacher librarian funding at the state level,” says Dutton Ewbank, who modeled her “save our school libraries” campaign after the Spokane Moms, three devoted mothers who worked tirelessly to obtain state funding for school librarians—and succeeded earlier this year by convincing legislators to allocate $4 million in library funds for the 2008–2009 academic year.

Just last month, Mesa school library supporters thought there was still hope because the district’s governing board—which initiated the proposal to eliminate all media specialists over the next three years—said it was open to other suggestions.

Arizona doesn’t have dedicated funds for school libraries or mandate-certified media specialists at any grade. School libraries and librarians are controlled at the district level, not by the state Department of Education, which means that when funds are scarce, librarians are typically the first on the chopping block, says Dutton Ewbank, adding that state funding would have ensured a “dedicated funding stream” for school librarians.

Mesa Public Schools hopes to cut $1.2 million of its total $20 million budget deficit by axing the school librarians.