CA's Mt. Diablo Cuts School Librarian Positions

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By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 02/15/2010

School librarians are on the chopping block again in California’s Mt. Diablo Unified School District.

While school board members have tried to limit the number of cuts to media specialists, severe budget constraints to the district are forcing trustees to reduce the number of librarians in schools even further. The district needs to slash $35 million to balance its budget over the next three years.

School board president Paul Strange.

“There’s no way around it,” says school board president Paul Strange. “We certainly don’t have much coverage. Nowhere near what we should have. And we all know how important librarians are. We protected them through millions of cuts. The problem is we have things that are mandated, and we’re getting down to only what is mandated.”

The school board cut 3.6 middle school library positions for next year—primarily because they’re not necessary to cover prep time for teachers. The district recently eliminated class size reduction rules, increasing the number of students from 20 per teacher in K–3 classes, to 30. That decreased the teaching staff—and the number of teachers who need coverage.

As a result, middle school libraries will be open just one day a week, high school libraries two days a week, and elementary school libraries open depending on the size of the school, says Strange, who thinks there’s little that can be done at this point to restore school librarian positions.

Mt. Diablo school district had considered a parcel tax, which was put before voters last May, and could have generated $7 million a year, says Strange. But the tax of $99 per parcel was voted down, and Strange says that tax was proposed when the district thought it needed to cut just $17 million. However, after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger released his budget earlier this month, the district found it needed to slash an additional $9 million just for the coming 2010-2011 school year.

At that rate, Strange says, school librarians unfortunately are not a required priority. “We can just close libraries altogether, which is unacceptable” he says. “But those are the decisions we’re looking at.”