GEN: media specialist statistics

[Tamah Graber <tgraber@UMD5.UMD.EDU>]

At a Board of Education meeting today, our department was asked to
provide statistics of media specialists per number of students in
schools, absolute numbers of media specialists to number of schools in
the county, and media assistants per number of students in the schools.
The apparent aim was to compare our school system with others in the
state of Maryland, but this seems to me to be an innappropriate
comparison.  What would make more sense would be to compare school
systems around the country which are similar to ours.

There are 21 high schools in Montgomery County, with 26 middle schools
and 125 elementary schools. In addition there are some alternative
schools in the district.  I am not sure of the population, but it is
probably several 100,000 students.  We currently have one full time media
specialist position in every elementary school but one (maybe 2), one
full time media specialist in every middle school, and one or two full
time media specialists in every high school, depending upon population.
While many of our high schools are relatively small, some are over 2000
students.  The county originally intended to put three full time media
specialists in the high population schools.  Those were cut, or not
implemented.  We have at least a part-time media assistant position in
each elementary school, but that goes to full time with a population of
over 450.  Our middle and high schools have assistants ranging from one
full-time to three full and/or part-time.  In addition, our high schools
usually (or always, I am not sure) have media technicians who are largely
responsible for things such as equipment, television studio production
and computers.   I realize we are in relatively good shape, but the
question I have is relative to what?

Montgomery County is outside of Washington, D.C. and is among  the
wealthiest counties in the country.  At least two of our schools are
regularly mentioned as the best in the country by whomever does such
surveys in national magazines.  One of our high schools has an
International Baccalaureate program that is ranked the top in the world
by the percentage of students who pass the rigorous IB tests.  We have
many merit scholars well distributed throughout the county.  However, our
demographics are changing.  We have had an enormous influx of immigrants,
and our ESOL population is now either the highest or second highest in
the state.  Our socio-economic levels range from extremely poor to
fabulously wealthy.  In fact, our county has an enormous diversity and of
course, an enormous diversity of needs.  In addition, our school population is
growing, while the school budget is shrinking.

The school board has proposed, and the county council has agreed to a
program called Global Access, to connect all the schools in the county to
each other and to the Internet.  The people mainly responsible for its
implementation in the schools are media specialists.  Yet the school
board cut ten high school media specialist positions last year and is
looking to do more chopping this year.

I would like to hear from people in school systems around the country
regarding the statistics I mentioned at the beginning of my letter.  If
other people are interested, I will gladly post a hit, but please respond
to me directly.  TIA


         Tamah Graber
         Darnestown E.S.
         15030 Turkey Foot Road
         Gaithersburg, MD 20878

         tgraber@umd5.umd.edu