[CALIBK12] Censorship and the Power of Policies

[Rusty Tooley]

-----Original Message-----

Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:59:02 -0800
From: Darla Brown

Certainly we make mistakes-as I have, and as this school librarian in Fresno apparently did. 

*****

We all do make mistakes. I shudder to think what the librarians thought who followed me at some of the schools I worked at in my first few years in this profession.

I've been an elementary LMT/TL for over ten years now, and of all that time, it was only during my first year that the "policy" -- as communicated by my supervisor -- was that librarians should spend about half their time teaching and half their time on administrative matters and lesson planning. I just did the math, and the actual teaching time that year was just over a third of the week, leaving a LOT of non-contact time to put to good use. This was in a district where credentialed librarians were also responsible for textbooks at the 3 sites we worked at each week, but we also had full-time clerks (pro-rated based on ADA) at every site in those days.

After that, we became teacher release time providers, each year providing more and more until six years later, they told us that in the following year, we'd have to teach all day, every day with no clerical support on the days we were on site. When most of us said "No thanks, we'll go back to the classroom," they cut the librarians, and I came to my current district.

I don't like to complain when, compared to most other elementary school library programs, I am pretty well off. But...I have no clerk or tech at my site, so I do a fair amount of clerical tasks, like sending lost book notices, entering new students into our circ system, and so forth. (Thank goodness for parent volunteers who check in/out, shelve books, and do book repair and processing, and yes, I try to do only the really necessary tasks efficiently, and not sweat the small stuff.) 

I spend 50.2% of my week seeing classes (fixed schedule, and teacher release time, of course), but most of the free blocks of time are 30 minutes here or an hour there and tend to get eaten up with those clerical tasks and planning for the next lessons. I have one 4-hour block on Wednesdays each week when I can really tackle anything significant, and that's only because part of that time is our minimum day, if it's not the third week of the month when we have our district library meeting, or the thirty minutes every other week after lunch when our whole student body meets in small, multi-grade groups, including one that meets with me. More information than you all wanted, I'm sure.  : )

My point, and I do have one, is that while I believe selection policies are necessary and useful, it's discouraging that parents and administrators expect we have "done our homework" on every single title that is added to our collections while not having adequate time and support to actually do that. Thank goodness my materials budget is so small.

-- 
Rusty Tooley
Teacher Librarian
Barron Park Elementary School
Palo Alto Unified School District
www.pausd.org