Even if you were unable to attend the Rally to Restore Philadelphia School Librarians on January 24 in front of the School District of Philadelphia’s administration building, hopefully you’ve been following both PSLA’s news as well as the state and national media coverage. With 150 or more attending the rally, I was honored to speak for PSLA and all school librarians in Pennsylvania to put the issue of the loss of school librarians in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the nation in the spotlight.

This rally did not happen without the enormous help of PSLA’s partnership with EveryLibrary (John Chrastka and Patrick Sweeney) who helped us enlist Lauren Comito (LJ Librarian of the Year) as our emcee. EveryLibrary's experience and expertise for a rally enabled PSLA to consider the idea of holding a rally during ALA’s MidWinter Conference and then led us through every step to make it happen successfully. Of course, PSLA’s work was done through the never-ending determination of our State and Local Advocacy Committee, particularly our co-chairs, Deb Kachel and Robin Burns, PSLA President-Elect. We also partnered with the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools (APPS), many of whom are former teachers and school librarians from School District of Philadelphia, helping us secure from Philadelphia, a city council member, teacher, school librarian and a high school student on our list of speakers. Kevin Harley and Quantum Communications rounded out the team to ensure that we had legislators speaking and attending as well as local media coverage.

As a PSLA member, regardless of our own situations, we all want adequate staffing of certified school librarians in all schools in Pennsylvania. If you are not part of School District of Philadelphia you might be wondering what the rally means to the other 499 school districts.

First, the media coverage we received has truly brought this issue to stakeholders beyond the Philadelphia geographic area. We are using this momentum to speak for all 500 districts to demand that our students receive equitable access to certified school librarians with quality school library program.

Friday, January 24, in front of the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) Administration Building, 440 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia, from 12:30 to 1:00pm (students have a half-day of school) The event is being organized by PSLA and EveryLibrary, a non-profit, national political action committee for libraries. APPS, the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, is also supporting the rally, assisting with local arrangements. The Administration Building is four blocks from the Convention Center where the ALA Midwinter Conference is being held.

• Although there are over 200,000 students in SDP with 341 schools, there are fewer than 8 school librarians in the district, making it the worst librarian to student ratio in the nation.
• PSLA’s message: Every student deserves a certified school librarian and a quality school library.
• Lauren Comito, founder of Urban Librarians Unite and recent recipient of Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award will be the MC.
• Speakers include PA State Rep. Thomas Murt, a primary co-sponsor of HB 1355 and Senator Larry Farnese, a sponsor of SB 752. Jerry Jordan, President of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Jessica Way, Caucus of Working Educators, Helen Gym, and Kendra Brooks, Philadelphia City Councilwomen, and a parent and student. There will be a photographer and media to cover the event.
• Please RSVP at https://www.saveschoollibrarians.org/rally_psla_20 .

Now that the mid-term elections are over, both the US Congress and the PA General Assembly are reorganizing. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Dem) has just been named Speaker of the US House and now committee assignments will begin. In our state legislature, leadership positions have been decided but committees not yet finalized. The PA House and Senate Education and Appropriations Committees will be most important for PSLA members as we push to have companion bills in both the House and Senate to ensure certified school librarians in every public school during.

Although the PA House and Senate remain in Republican control as the majority party, there have been many changes (see below) due to elections and recent redistricting.  

Go to the PA General Assembly site to lookup who represents both your home address and that of your school (https://www.legis.state.pa.us/). Scroll down to “Find My Legislator” and enter your addresses.

In coming months PSLA will engage in a vigorous campaign to support school library legislation. Know who represents you!

Sadly, it is in April and May that I begin to get emails for panicked school librarians that staffing cuts have just been announced that will decimate school library programs for students and staff. Most librarian who contact me are completely surprised at the totally unexpected cuts and are so flummoxed that they have no idea what to do in response to the announcement. After having written so many emails on this situation, I am curating the best advice and sources here.

BEST ARTICLE (from a school librarian who fought this battle and won):

“Fighting Cuts: How To Keep Librarians in Schools.” SLJ.com, April 3, 2018. Advice form Elissa Malespina, a teacher librarian at Somerville (NJ) Middle School and president of International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Librarians Network. 

Read the article and/or watch the 45-minute webinar at https://AntiochLIS.libguides.com/schlibcert/librncuts.

by Heather Lister

In an interview with ABC27 on May 17th, Lower Dauphin Director of Community Relations claimed, “You do the best with the resources you have before you go back to the taxpayers and ask for more money.” This statement was in response to a growing number of community members speaking out against reducing the number of certified librarians in the district, which is currently being proposed for the 17-18 school year.

The district is arguing that by eliminating the position of a middle school librarian, they will free up the funds to increase technology and make a more modern space. There are two issues I see with this. First, with this logic the district could eliminate math teachers if they invest in fancy calculators. Second, I had no indication that Lower Dauphin was under any sort of financial distress. So before making conclusions, I do what any good librarian does, I research.

As I began exploring the financial data to back up the district’s statement, I referenced several published documents from recent Board meetings. I learned that both State and Federal funding has increased, the employer rate for PSERS pension contributions is the lowest increase in 5 years, interest on investments increased 150%, contributions and donations from private sources is up 500%, and the district saw an increase in both property tax and earned income tax from the growth in the area. So why the need to cut positions? However, I understood that districts can’t rely on levels of federal and state funding so I continued searching. Just weeks ago, the Pennsylvania Department of Education released its updated financial reports for the 2015-16 school year.

One of the biggest takeaways from this report is that Pennsylvania school districts’ general fund balances now top $4.4 BILLION dollars and there seems to be a growing awareness of this issue. Naturally, I was curious what Lower Dauphin’s contribution was to this amass of money.

The Philadelphia Inquirer examines the dwindling number of librarians in one of the nation’s largest school systems. The number of full-time, certified librarians in the Philadelphia School District is now in the single digits.

Read more on how shrunken Philadelphia school budgets are almost pushing librarians to the point of extinction.

Op-ed: Lancaster Online

School librarians have a profound impact on students’ futures

As a school district library department supervisor, I would love to say that, after 17 years in this position, my district has the perfect school library program. The reality is that our idea of perfection evolves. The needs of our students are constantly changing. So, too, our district’s mission and vision must change to meet the future-ready needs of our students...

Cathi Fuhrman, Ed.D., is library department supervisor for the Hempfield School District. This article was originally presented at a hearing before the state House Education Committee.

The PSLA Board of Directors continues to be concerned about the support of school library programs by the decision makers. Based on feedback of a stakeholders’ meeting consisting of representatives of Commonwealth Libraries, Pennsylvania PTA, Pennsylvania Library Association, Education Law Center, and members of the House of Representatives, the PSLA Board of Directors is working on a three-year action plan. As part of this plan the Board has approved the following activities for year one of the plan:

• Begin working on a plan for a public awareness campaign for school library programs for every child in Pennsylvania
• Create a School Library Coalition
• Advocate to restore and to increase funding for POWER Library services

The PSLA Legislation Committee will launch the campaign to restore and to increase POWER Library at our annual conference.

To help address the potential of more furloughs or position cuts of professional librarians and the reduction in library funding due to Governor Corbett’s educational budget, the Board created a letter that can be sent to the superintendent of any district that is cutting or eliminating professional staff. The following procedure needs to be followed:

Any librarian from within that district can request this letter by contacting Deb Kachel. The requesting librarian will need to provide the mailing and email address of the Superintendent.  If librarian wishes that a copy of the letter be sent to any other administrator or school board member, please supply the email address.