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Turns out the original vote was illegal since it takes a majority vote of the 
entire board to cut personnel.  At a revote last night the vote split 2-2 and the 
board president broke the tie by voting  to cut the librarians.  The board 
president is a math teacher in my district.  
 
To answer some of the questions I have gotten:
 
- I do not work for that district.  I work in a high school district that has kept 
full library staffing and will for the foreseeable future (I hope).
 
-There are 16 schools in the Merced City School District, each with a full-time 
Library Media Teacher (the official CA title) and a full-time clerk.
 
-All 16 LMTs have been cut.  Presumably the clerks will now run the libraries alone.
 
-The district admin floated the cuts several months ago and the librarians and 
their supporters have been campaigning hard to save the programs.  They presented 
overwhelming evidence of their value, backed by the professional research,  which 
was ignored.
 
-The district is looking at having 4 or more district librarians to supervise the 
libraries-- if money can be found.  Several administrators and board members have 
said they would like to hire back "as many LMTs as possible."
 
-California and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges have no regulations 
or standards regarding library staffing.  In this state the Merced City Schools and 
my own district (Merced Union High School District) have been the exception, not 
the rule, in having fully staffed (by California's very low standards) libraries.
 
Both of our districts are very high poverty.  Although the neighborhood school my 
kids attend is largely middle class, most of the district's kids are low-income, 
with more than 75% qualifying for free lunch.  Our county library system is grossly 
under funded.  Most branches are open less than 25 hours per week and are staffed 
by volunteers.  My own children don't like to go to the county library because we 
have a better collection of kids books at home.  The school libraries are the only 
source of books and professional library services most of those kids have.
 
Even if money is found and all of the librarians are retained the district, both 
the administration and the board, has spoken loudly and clearly about their opinion 
of libraries and librarians and the role they play in the development of basic 
literacy and information literacy.  The librarians are disposable and the libraries 
are "far from the classroom"-- farther apparently than the district office.  
 
It is a sad day for Merced.
 
--------------------------------------------------
Tony Doyle, Library Media Teacher 
CSLA Northern Section PR Chair
Livingston High School
Livingston, CA
tdoyle@MUHSD.K12.CA.US
Http://www.lhswolves.org/library/index.htm
Http://lhsblog.edublogs.org
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture; you just have to get people to 
stop reading them."
Ray Bradbury

 

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