Parents Lead Fight for School Librarians in Seattle

Across the nation schools are trying to trim budgets by removing librarians from their libraries. We struggle with it here in Kansas just like the other states do. When I visit school librarians they are very aware that they need to be proactive in promoting their services and their value to their schools.

Librarians know that libraries are essential to education. One of the hottest topics for both K-12 and Academic Libraries is Teacher/Librarian Co-operation that brings library materials into the classroom in direct support of teaching units. They work everyday to remind teachers that they are not limited to the resources in their classrooms. The library puts a world of knowledge at their fingertips.

It's refreshing to hear that parents see this too. In Washington State, parents are standing up and demanding that the school libraries be staffed with trained librarians. In Seattle, Washington a loose-knit group of parents began defending their librarians and school libraries. They did e-mail campaigns and created a newsletter. They went to Spokane and lobbied their legislature.

The Los Angeles Times on December 23, 2007 reported

This month, they hand-delivered 2,500 signatures to a state government committee examining Washington's arcane school-funding system. "We did it to find out if anybody cared," said Layera Brunkan, who started the petition drive with Susan McBurney. Their children's elementary school was affected by the cuts.

"We realized that the school libraries are hemorrhaging, and it was far worse than we ever imagined," said Layera Brunkan.

State legislators, accustomed to professional lobbyists and official representatives of public education's many special interest groups, embraced the parents-turned-activists.

GOP state Rep. Skip Priest was buttonholed by the Spokane parents. He sits on the Basic Education Finance Joint Task Force, which will recommend education funding changes to the Legislature next year.

Here's a link to the full article from the Los Angeles Times as reported in American Libraries Direct. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-librarians23dec23,1,6494151.story?ctrack=2&cset=true