Thursday, March 25, 2010

Ravaged by cuts, school libraries fight to stay alive

In an article in the Marin Independent Journal which was published on Monday, March 22, Rob Rogers reports on the state of school libraries in Marin County.
A couple quotes from the article:
"The way I look at it, I'm a teacher two times over," said Redwood High School librarian Tom Kaun, who like all teacher-librarians holds credentials in both library science and another academic subject - in his case, biology and physical science. "We don't have classrooms, and we don't give grades, but we work in collaboration with classroom teachers to teach the kids to cope with the tidal wave of information they're confronted with."
"For a long time, I've thought we need to get a parent to sue the whole state, and do for libraries what the Williams settlement did for textbooks," said Kaun, referring to the state law that allows students to sue a school district if they lack textbooks or other required instructional materials. "Right now, districts will do whatever they need to do in order to save their budgets, and libraries are considered relatively expendable."

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