Dear LM_NETers,
I find it quite interesting (according to the responses to this post) that
so many elementary schools are on fixed schedules which is in total
opposition to the AASL Information Power standard. I, too, am on a fixed
schedule because I could never make flexible scheduling work the way I
envisioned it. I have decided that the problem is twofold:
1. In order to do flex schedule, there needs to be two librarians as a
regular fixed schedule is also necessary to keep in close contact with the
classrooms (desirable) and/or cover teacher prep time (not desirable).
2. There is never enough money to pay for 2 librarians, therefore, most of
us are either forced into the fixed schedule by the school and/or our own
desire to be sure we see all of the kids on a regular basis. I think that
having more professionals on staff is the answer (along with a big enough
space to carry on two activities at the same time) in addition to a
clerk/aide or at least good volunteers.
Of course, most of us can't even get prep time, much less another librarian,
but I can dream. What you all say that we lobby for more school librarians
in every building?
Lorraine Smith
Librarian
Lake Pointe Elementary, Lake Travis ISD
Austin, TX 78738
----- Original Message -----
From: "Linda DeVore" <linda.devore@CGELEM.K12.AZ.US>
To: <LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 2:23 PM
Subject: Time spent teaching classes
> Thank you for all of the responses. A couple of days ago I posted
> the question "How much time is spent teaching classes?" for an elementary
> librarian in my district. The average number of classes being taught per
> week is 30.5 with most classes being 30 minutes in length. School sizes,
> where given, ranged from 650 to 850 students. Most people are on fixed
> schedules and are the planning period for their teachers. A couple of
> people have fixed schedules but also have some flex time built in as well.
> There were only a couple of responses where people had more than
200
> minutes a week allocated for prep/planning. There was one person where by
> contract where they had to be given a prep and another where the state
> legislature had gotten into the fracas by mandating that teachers would
have
> a guaranteed 40 minute uninterrupted prep every day. One person had no
prep
> and was expected to do administrative duties before or after school on her
> own time. One person is down to 3 hours a week and another is at 40
minutes
> a day. The good news is that the majority of the respondents have at
least
> a part-time aide and in a lot of cases a full time aide/assistant. No one
> said that they had enough time for doing "library stuff". Most of the
> respondents are exhausted and are feeling frustrated.
> Once again, thank you for your responses and I hope that this
> information can be used by this librarian when she speaks with her
principal
> and that the second librarian can be allocated some "prep" time of her own
> and maybe even give up her PE class!
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