Advocacy Plan to Impact Decision Makers

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.

All school librarians must continue to promote within your community the vital role librarians play in PA Common Core and the results of the IMLS National Leadership Grant Project. The information is found on the PSLA Website.

As our state and federal 2012-13 budgets are being finalized, our voices must be heard to preserve school library programs for students!!!  Please continue to support any Call to Actions or Alerts sent out by Deb Kachel, PSLA Legislative Liaison.

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