Librarian-Gate is happening right now in Christina School District. It’s kind of unfair to target just this one District though, because the other 15 districts have to go through this every year too.
Someone somewhere got it from someone else that District administrators “promised” all librarians would be returning to Christina schools if the March referendum passed (which it did). If that is true, the that district administrator does not know public school finance. Also if true, verbal “because I said so’s” constitute binding agreements now? Come on.
Here’s the deal. No district administration, or Board of Education, or school principal can “guarantee” anything when it comes to what positions will be staffed in our buildings each year. It’s just not possible to do given the way Delaware allocates its education funding. In the March referendum campaign, we said the outcome of a passed referendum would be to restore the funding for lost positions which included librarians, art teachers, gym teachers, music teachers, core teachers, paraprofessionals, and more. And that’s what we have. The funding is there for staffing those positions. The funding is NOT there to staff ALL of them. Realistically funding has never been there to staff our schools like they should be. Delaware makes it so you have to choose between smaller class sizes or having art, music, phys ed, and library. (I’m looking at YOU General Assembly people who like giving millions to corporations on a whim). The busted funding system in Delaware education is not, I repeat NOT the fault of school principals, District leaders, or Boards of Education* (State Board of Education excluded)
This is the part of the presentation at last night’s Board of Education meeting that’s causing the stir:
Librarians are notably absent from bullet point 4 under “Teachers”. We campaigned hard for restoring them along with art, music, phys ed, and reducing class sizes. The fact that they are not included here is disappointing. Their absence is a symptom of a much broader problem that is not exclusive to any one School District or Administration (no matter how much you may wish it to be so). Delaware doesn’t consider art, music, phys ed, and library essential and provides no direct funding to pay for them. In order for our public schools to have them, they have to take the funds from something (or someone) else and pay for them. Often this is accomplished by eliminating a classroom teacher and using that funding to hire a “specialist” teacher. When you do that, though, you increase the number of students in a class because you have one less teacher in a room. If you use a 5th grade teaching position to help fund a librarian, the students that would have been in that 5th grade classroom now have to be divided among the remaining 5th grade rooms. Rinse and repeat for art, music, and phys ed.
But. Librarians can still be hired back. In order to do that, one of the other bullet points would have to change as you would need to take one of the teaching units from your grades and use it for a librarian. Or you could sacrifice one of the other specialist positions (art, music, phys ed) to get a librarian. Or the Board of Education and/or District Administration could mandate principals to hire a librarian in their schools. I want librarians in schools but I don’t want orders from on-high commanding principals on how to staff their buildings. This is the situation our schools face every. single. year. irrespective of a referendum. Why? Because Delaware Code pertaining on ‘earned teaching unit’ funding. The funding system is broken, just like it was before the referendum passed in March. Just like it was when we failed to pass twice in 2015. It’s no different now.
Isn’t it terrible that our State puts schools in such a situation? Choose One: Smaller class sizes, art, music, phys ed, or library. It is an election year. Let’s put our electoral candidates’ feet to the fire and see if they consider library, art, music, and phys ed essential parts of a child’s education. Then ask them to help pay for it.
Rather than direct that exceptional lamentation at the district-everyone-loves-to-hate’s administration and Board of Education; target your legislators with that frustration. You know, the ones who can actually change the way things work and remove this absurd choice from our principals. That takes gumption though who has time for that when it’s so easy to keep beating dead horses named Christina?
