[aisle] What are your most pressing issues

Tue Jul 27 11:17:31 CDT 2021

One big issue in my district is lack of teacher librarians at the elementary school. I am at the middle school and I see the difference. Other districts I worked in had certified elementary librarians and it makes a big difference in terms of research skills. I then worry we send them off to highschool without as much research practice as they should have.

Budget is my next biggest issue. I don't have enough usually to buy all the books I need to let alone make sure our makerspace remains up to date. With the new data laws on student privacy I need app vendors for our fairly new robots to get back to me and it is like pulling teeth to accomplish at times. And tech just quickly becomes outdated. Going along with that, we do have access to cloud library, but I would like something that doesn't have wait times of 8 months for a wimpy kid title. There is no way I have the budget for Sora and the public library that was going to get us e cards a year ago has run into trouble with it and just stopped responding.

My school is in bottom of school report card rankings. We have astoundingly high rates of chronic absences, suspensions, and mobility. Our reputation is not good. But we are turning it around and these things *will change*. I don't think people at the district level understand how important libraries are in schools like this, but the research says very important.

Last year the district removed instructional specialists due to classroom teacher shortages. The idea was to reassign them to teaching positions. As you can imagine, that meant a bunch of them left the district. So I always worry about my position changing or my full time TA being taken away and I need my TA. My school is supportive of the library, but with the increasing teacher shortage I worry a great deal.

And it seems like these things all tie together. In libraries with inadequate budgets we cannot do as much. In libraries with out appropriate staffing and support, we cannot do as much. And this can make it hard to show the true power and potential of school libraries.

So I suppose I want to revise my answer a bit and say the biggest issue we are facing in school libraries is a lack of prioritization, an inadequate recognition and what we do. This leads to the understaffing, under budgeting, under use of us.

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________________________________
From: AISLE <aisle-bounces at list.railslibraries.info> on behalf of Jennifer Muzzy via AISLE <aisle at list.railslibraries.info>
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2021 2:05:01 PM
To: AISLE-Share: Association of Illinois School Library Educators discussion list <aisle at list.railslibraries.info>
Cc: Jennifer Muzzy <jennifermuzzy at mcusd2.com>
Subject: Re: [aisle] What are your most pressing issues

I'm late to the party here, but I agree with the pressing issues mentioned, and would include being seen as a specials instructor to cover teacher plan time.  It is seen as we should have the same amount of planning time as other specials teachers, and no more than classroom teachers.  Never mind that "planning time" is hardly used for planning lessons, but doing all the things that help keep the media center going for the school.

Jennifer Muzzy
Riddle Elementary School
Mattoon, IL

On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 10:51 AM Brenda Glenn via AISLE <aisle at list.railslibraries.info<mailto:aisle at list.railslibraries.info>> wrote:
My biggest issue is a fixed schedule that doesn't even have enough time for lesson planning. Then I'm supposed to be able to manage the library space and do collection development. Not pointing fingers, but my planning time and the PE teacher's planning time shouldn't be the same.

Brenda
<mailto:bglenn at emsd63.org>
[https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1kNOfTAeLyaCddInHyRE4_cXK0qPxJQwR&revid=0B56SfaWdZWMBam5xQjlqMjB2V3dKTjR5YW1BZnltWG54QUp3PQ]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 8:06 AM Pres Elect via AISLE <aisle at list.railslibraries.info<mailto:aisle at list.railslibraries.info>> wrote:
Hi everyone,

Could you please let me know what your pressing issues as you look towards fall?

Budget, regaining space and staff?  If you went into classroom last year, are you going back to library?

We want to make sure we are doing everything we can to support you.  This information will also be shared with Rails
And IHLS Systems.
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President Elect 20-21
Association of Illinois School Library Educators
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Jennifer Muzzy
Librarian
Riddle Elementary School
Mattoon, IL 61938
jennifermuzzy at mcusd2.com<mailto:jennifermuzzy at mcusd2.com>
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