California Hands Out Scores of Pink Slips to School Librarians

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By Debra Lau Whelan March 15, 2011

The bloodletting continues. Scores of California media specialists received preliminary pink slips today, paving the way for several districts to be without librarians when the school year begins next fall.

March 15 marks the state deadline to notify all certified teachers, librarians, and counselors that they could lose their jobs in September in an effort to reduce a $26 billion budget deficit, says Mike Myslinski, a spokesperson for the 325,000-member California Teachers Association, of whom 445 are school librarians.

Among those on the hit list are the Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest public school system in the state, San Diego City Schools, Del Norte County Unified School District, and Long Beach Unified School District.

The librarian at Contra Costa High School received a pink slip.

"It's outrageous what's happening," Myslinski says. "It's so critical that students have a credentialed librarian who can show them the intricacies of research in this high tech world that we live in."

Since California doesn't mandate certified media specialists at any level, only 23 percent remain statewide (mostly in high schools)—a number that's certain to decrease if districts decide to follow through on the proposed layoffs by their May 15 deadline. The state already has the highest librarian-to-student ratio in the nation. The national average is one school librarian to 856 students, but in the 2004-2005 academic year there was one librarian for every 5,965 students in California. "And it's only gotten worse," says Myslinski, adding that over the last three years, cuts to state education have totaled $18 billion.

Although there are no concrete figures as of yet, anecdotal evidence points to dismal news. "Hundreds of school librarians and thousands of classroom teachers [received] pink slips." says Jackie Siminitus, vice president of the California School Library Association (CSLA), who adds that a lot of districts were already cut to the bone.

Although the past two decades have seen deep drops in the state's library materials budgets, Siminitus says cuts to personnel have been especially severe over the last two years. "A lot of our teacher-librarian members are disheartened," she says, explaining why CSLA membership has declined, and it's been hard to get the precise number of layoff notices.

The preliminary numbers show that the number of remaining California media specialists will be at a bare minimum, with some district libraries being run by clerical staff or shut down completely. For example, the small Santa Clara Unified School District in the heart of Silicon Valley is planning to get rid of its last six librarians—after spending $15.5 million to remodel libraries at three high schools and two middle schools, says Tracy Pope, a teacher at Cabrillo Middle School and president of United Teachers of Santa Clara, which represents more than 800 teachers and librarians in the district.

Karen Joesten, a librarian who often collaborates with Pope, says she's worked at two other California districts where the library program was cut—never to be reinstated with professional librarians. The impact of the latest news at her school will be huge: the collaborative work that went on between teachers and librarians for 17 years will vanish; it will be impossible to imbed library standards with curriculum standards; and student test scores, as well as literacy and critical thinking skills, are sure to drop, she says.

"I suspect my district will keep the library open with our library aides and despite their dedication, I am expecting our collections to deteriorate," she adds.

In a last-ditch effort to save her job, media specialist Kathy Smoot of Santa Clara's Wilcox High School pleaded with her school board last night. "The budgetary neutron bomb will take out the people, and leave the buildings—brand-new library buildings—without appropriate staffing levels to run them," she says.

Other victims? The Anaheim Union High School District is proposing to ax its seven teacher-librarians and will likely reassign them to classrooms, says Kathie Maier, a librarian at Gilbert High School. Out of 130 teacher-librarians, Los Angeles Unified gave pink slips to 85, says media specialist Roza Besser of Portola Middle School. "It appears to be job loss," she says. "As to what the district plans on doing with the libraries, no one knows."

And at Southern California's Fontana Unified School District, the plan is to cut two high school, seven middle school, and a whopping 23 elementary school librarians, says Maria Copak, a district library specialist.

Josephine Carson, a librarian at the Mt. Diablo Unified School District in Contra Costa County, says her superintendent, faced with millions of dollars in cuts, presented the school board with a list of draconian measures. He asked that the remaining elementary and secondary school librarian positions be eliminated, which would only leave one districtwide librarian to supervise all collections. "As librarians, we were all devastated and heartbroken by the announcement," she says. "We are teachers first. We teach and assist every student and every teacher in the district. We know the value of our service and can't imagine how a student is to obtain a comprehensive education without an open library and fully certificated library media teachers. We don't see ourselves as a luxury, but rather a necessity." The good news is they've worked out a deal to keep the elementary school librarian for another year, but the fate of the secondary school media specialist is still in question.

Barbara Jeffus, a part-time school library consultant with the California Department of Education, remembers when she received a pink slip 15 years ago as a school librarian. "It doesn't matter if [the layoff] actually happens," she says. "When you get that notice, the floor just drops from under you."

Ironically, last September the California State Board of Education approved new Model School Library Standards, which for the first time outline detailed state library standards for grades K–12 and has a strong emphasis on 21st-century skills. "But who's going to implement them?" asks Jeffers, since librarians will be practically endangered species.

Connie Williams, a former CSLA president and a media specialist at Petaluma High School, is one of the lucky ones. She and three other media specialists in her district remain unscathed because her city passed a parcel tax to pay for the salaries of two school librarians, while the district's general funds pay for the other two. Williams is chair of the new public awareness initiative called the California Campaign for Strong School Libraries, which has a simple message: strong school libraries build strong students. Although the campaign came out too late to affect today's pink slips, Williams says she hopes its long-term message informs Californians about the value of teacher-librarians for student learning.

"Our campaign message is more important than ever," Williams says. "While some schools will cut their entire library programs, others will keep their doors open with part-time clerks, others will keep their teacher-librarian, but cut their clerks, and still others are protected by local taxes that pay for their library programs."

It's not over yet. California Governor Jerry Brown is proposing a budget that relies on $12.5 billion in spending cuts and is asking California voters to extend billions in tax increases for five years to close the deficit. And he says it's his intension to keep K–12 schools funded at the same dollar level they received from the state this year—if voters approve higher income taxes on the ballot.

"If the temporary taxes aren't extended there'll be several billon dollars more in cuts to schools," says the California Teachers Association's Myslinski. "It'll be pretty harrowing."

This article originally appeared in the newsletter Extra Helping. Go here to subscribe.

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