I delivered a Powerpoint presentation before our school board last Tuesday (2-10). I included a quote "The relationship between certain school library characteristics and higher student achievement is well established. When libraries are better equipped, better staffed, better maintained, and are available more hours to students and faculty, students experience higher achievement." from Research for Educational Reform 2005, Vol. 10 Issue 1, p. 45-52. I included the number of books checked out during the last school year (almost 72,000 amongst all our schools) as well as an accounting of the value of our (books only) inventory which was over 1 million dollars.

The school district needs to feel our value as teacher librarians. It also needs to know the value of our library specialists. And our value needs to broaden in these desperate times to encompass more, so that the school gains even more practical benefit. I touted my library specialists as experts at maintaining their inventories, and with all the waste that goes on in schools with missing, abandoned, or ignored equipment, my library specialists can help, given some extra time, to monitor more inventory than the books and help the district become more financially efficient.

Our entire district (6 schools with libraries) is down to 1 teacher librarian (myself) and each library specialist at each site down to only 6 hours/day. Hard to imagine any more cuts, but, these are crazy times. We need to be valuable in practical, cost-effective ways so that we can maintain our jobs during this crisis.

Posted on behalf of Sandra Yoon:

Legi Day in the District went extremely well in Bakersfield/Kern County! I visited four offices with a representative from the Kern County Library. We visited Congressman Kevin McCarthy, Senator Roy Ashburn, Senator Dean Florez, and Assemblymember Jean Fuller's offices.

Each representative, or in the case of the congressman's office, Kevin McCarthy himself, listened to the key talking points that CSLA provided. I left copies of "School Libraries Work" with each person along with the fact sheet from the CSLA Legi Kit. I invited each person to visit a school library and followed up with a handwritten thank you note.

I recently gave a major presentation to our School Board--Keynote and summary paper of the program and a copy of School Libraries Work! with documentation of research. They were very impressed. I stressed what I'm doing in regards to research skills and Web 2.0 technologies. We are a one school district and have support from a parent-run foundation that helps with the cost of library, art, and music programs, but there will be cuts at our school. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the library won't be one of them. It's important to let as many parents and administrators know what you do every day. I have a blog that I update every week about what we do in the library. It's been a great PR tool.

Also posted on Calibk12:

As someone who is known for her passion, along with studies and statistics, I would make it personal. I would end my school board presentation with this:

I would look every board member in the eye and ask them to ask themselves if they would want their children and their grandchildren to attend a school where the library ceases to exist because there's no librarian.

I would pause to allow them to ponder that question.

I would then continue in a quiet, yet serious tone: "because if your answer is 'no' (and if it isn't 'No' then they have mental problems)then the children of this district certainly deserve no less than what you would want for THEM".

Posted on behalf of Sudesh Singa. See the letter, To Whom it May Concern in the sidebar.

My Textbook clerk wrote this letter to the school board. I just wanted to share this with everybody.
Sudesh

Sorry, the last post was on behalf of Sudesh Singal.

I've added a page on "Strong School Libraries as SOLUTIONS." Equity and Student Achievement are top issues, but there are others. In each case, "stories" can be linked from Doug Achterman's wiki. Stories sell and compel. - Jackie