An open letter from the Save Our Libraries Committee

Editor’s Note: I am reprinting a letter sent to me by the Save Our Libraries Committee, a group of parent library volunteers and coordinators who are organizing to support funding for public school libraries and looking for ways to sustain the mission of the libraries into the future. There will be an important meeting of the School Committee  next Tuesday, June 23rd, to discuss the allocation of around $175,000 from the Town’s free cash fund, which could be used to restore proposed cuts to Library Aide positions at the town’s elementary schools. The letter is reprinted here in its entirety. — Paul

Save Our Libraries Committee
Parent Library Volunteers and Coordinators

June 17, 2009

Dear School Committee Member:

We’d like to begin by thanking you for your dedication and hard work on behalf of the schools, the children, and the entire community of Belmont.  We are a group of parent library volunteers from all four elementary schools.  We are writing to ask for your support in allocating the $175,000 in funds voted on in Town Meeting to fund the four library aides and to reinstate the high school teaching positions.

While we are aware of the concerns regarding the future sustainability of these funds, we consider the libraries to be an essential core service to our schools, fundamental to supporting literacy and building a foundation of learning.  The value of the libraries is both measurable and greater then the sum of its parts.  The issue of keeping the libraries open has involved many more people in the civic process, and this discourse will ultimately lead to more involvement, commitment and buy-in by community members.  Together, the community can seek creative sources of future funding and converse more deeply about its priorities and how to support and sustain them.  We respectfully request that the School Committee allocates the $175,000 from “free cash” for the purpose for which it was intended:  to restore the elementary school library aides and the teaching positions at the high school.  It is our considered view that if the funding for the library aides is not allocated to the library aide positions, the school libraries will close.

As active library coordinators and volunteers, we are committed to supporting the functioning of the libraries.  Our group has met to discuss how we could help to sustain the school libraries in the coming year and in future years.  The libraries cannot remain open without the paid aides.  While volunteers are essential to supporting the library program, they could not effectively manage all of the day-to-day responsibilities of the library.  Our library aides are the essential link to keeping functioning collections in our elementary school libraries.  The library aides are an extremely cost effective line item in the budget.  They function as “librarians” but at the salary of an aide.

Our weekly time in the school libraries offers us unique perspectives on their benefits as well as a sense of the challenges that the schools and the community would encounter if the infrastructure – the aides – to support them was no longer available.  Following are some of our observations about benefits that may not immediately come to mind:

BENEFITS.  Our School Libraries…

  • Ensure every child has a weekly visit to the library.  This provides more equitable access to books for all children regardless of income level, reading level, or parental availability.  The aides are familiar with each child and his or her particular needs as well as the library holdings and can therefore make tailored recommendations.
  • Provide child-centered learning.  Much in our schools is teacher directed and structured; the weekly visit to the library provides a unique opportunity for each child to direct his or her own literacy.  Those who are struggling to read may particularly benefit from choosing to read rather than being directed to do so.
  • Communicate value to the children about this most fundamental of skills.
  • Create excitement about learning amongst the children.  The children make recommendations of books to one another!  They share their enthusiasm and this opens up horizons that may not otherwise be accessible to one child alone.
  • Bring parents into the schools.  Parents meet each other face to face.  They get to know the children in the school and in the neighborhood by name.  They have more contact with teachers.  This strengthens the fabric of our community and our neighborhoods.  It creates connections and provides continuity.  These parents are more likely to stay and volunteer in other aspects of the schools.

ADDED BENEFITS.  Our School Library Aides…

  • Run the libraries efficiently and professionally.  The aides are skilled, experienced, committed.  They ensure that volunteer efforts are focused and fully utilized.  The aides likely could not be replaced in future at a similar pay scale.
  • Maintain the integrity of the collections.  They ensure the investment in materials is protected.  They manage and catalog incoming donations.  Our library collections are relevant and current (and attractive to the children) because of the aides’ expertise.
  • Serve as an important resource to the teachers, students, parents and staff.  Teachers may regularly and easily check out books for their classrooms.  The aide may pull out books relevant to class curricula, provide support for student projects, support parent queries.  Teachers gain essential prep time that will need to be made up if aides are cut.

In this year fraught with challenges and changes within our schools it is even more important that we maintain the continuity of this essential service.  As Wellington relocates in the coming year, its library aide will be essential to preserve the viability of the library collection.  As Butler welcomes its new principal, the continuity at the “heart” of the school, its library, will be helpful to him as he establishes connections with both students and parents.

Thank you for your careful consideration and anticipated support for reinstating the library aides.

Sincerely,
Save Our Libraries Committee, Parent Library Coordinators and Volunteers

Burbank:
Alisa Gardner-Todreas
Sue Morris

Ilyse Robbins Mohr

Butler:
Colleen Goodsell
Kathleen Kim
Joanne MacIsaac
Amanda Sawires Yager
Yuri Sung

Wellington:
Melina Jacovides
Christel Libenson

Janine Sciarappa
Heidi Steinert

Winn Brook:
Jennifer Angel
Mac Devivo
Joanne Lonergan