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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Librarian Positions Cut In Schools Across The Country

Librarian Positions Cut In Schools Across The Country

The Questionable Future Of School Librarians

Tracey Weiss Suits, a 25-year teacher who worked for the last six years as a media specialist in a Land O' Lakes, Fla., school, had a feeling her job was going to end. She just didn't know when.

Over time this spring, it became clear at Pasco County budget meetings that a slew of education programs and positions could be scrapped.

"I had a sense that media specialists weren’t one of the priorities, but I hoped they were cutting other programs," she recalled.

One day earlier this month, Weiss Suits' principal called her into a meeting, and she had her answer. The first thing she noticed was, she said, "the obligatory Kleenex box." Her principal told her she did an excellent job, but that her position -- a media specialist who helped implement the school’s technology from the library -- was being eliminated.

"I’m still in an anger phase right now," she told The Huffington Post a few hours afterwards.

Two weeks later, the district placed her in a language-arts teaching position in a different middle school. But