RIF Hearings

Tomorrow I report to the Reduction in Force hearings downtown, in hte basement of the California Market. I will try to defend my job as a teacher librarian from extinction in LAUSD. I will provide documentation for the lawyers and the judge that will decide if I and the other TLs deserve a right to be teachers when the district decides it does not need anyone to run their libraries.

When I went back to college for the second time to get a second credential so I could teach in hte library, I never thought that my additional credntial and my Masters in Education would actually keep me from being employable by my district. The only RIFed teachers who are not being allowed to return to the classrooms where they previously taught are the Teacher Libraians who left their old classrooms to teach in the library and effect the lives of hundreds of students per day through instructional technology and information literacy. Life is so ironic.

My district has decided that students and staff will check out and in hteir own books. No one is scheduled to shelve, repair, or replace the books. No one will teach students how to use databases or the brand nwe circulation system. No one will be responsible for the library collection or computers. Teachers will be expected to take their classes to the library and supervise circulation on a new system with no training whatsoever. Teachers who can also expect their class sizes to jump by 5 students per class next year.

I have worked in this library since my school opened. I have helped develop the collection, taught databases to teachers, staff and students, teach three classes per four period day, and have served as department chair for the electives department and member and secretary of the School Site Council. We have extended library hours to accomodate students and teachers before and after school and at lunch. I have served on the California Readers and the Westchester Fiction Committee to discover great books for my classes. I will be very sad to see everything I have worked for destroyed by short term planning. I love helping people find reading materials and research that means something to them. If the district proceeds with closing the libraries and leaving students no access, I am sure our reading and literacy scores will drop. If the doors are left open with no one accountable for the collection, I am sure that the materials will be missing, lost and a mess within weeks.

Every choice has natural consequences. If either of these things happen look for me at the local public library, working or volunteering in children's or YA literature.