The West Albany High School library is a venue for many student activities, like this past AP Studio Art exhibit. Some of Oregon’s biggest school districts are asking for more funding from the state as they prepare to make major cuts in next school year’s budget, which will impact libraries.
Courtesy of Jean Gritter
From Portland to Bend, leaders of some of Oregon’s biggest school districts are asking for more funding from the state as they prepare to make major cuts in next school year’s budget, due to declining enrollment and the end of one-time pandemic aid. Many school libraries have been told some of their library assistants will have to go, leaving the certified teacher librarians in charge without help to maintain hours or current services.
Jean Gritter is a teacher librarian at West Albany High School. She is also the advocacy chair for the Oregon Association of School Libraries. She said Oregon already ranks 48th in terms of the ratio of students to librarians — currently one teacher librarian for every 3,500 students.
“What they’re missing, first and foremost, is instruction … We talk about media literacy, how do we identify bias and purpose, and figure out why are people giving us this information, and what is it that they want out of it,” she said. “We talk about digital literacy. How do we use the devices we have available to extract the best and most thorough results that we need?
“So all of these are the research skills that we can build on in the library, and all of these relate to identifying mis- and disinformation, which, as we know, just in that same last 40 years, has increased a million-fold.”
Many enrichment activities including the Franklin High School poetry slam are created by teacher librarians like Ayn Reyes Frazee and held in school libraries. Some of Oregon’s biggest school districts are asking for more funding from the state as they prepare to make major cuts in next school year’s budget, including to libraries and their services.
Courtesy Ayn Reyes Frazee
Last year, there were 160 full-time licensed librarians employed throughout Oregon’s 197 school districts — a decrease of more than 80% since 1980, according to state data.
Ayn Reyes Frazee, OASL president and a teacher librarian at Portland’s Franklin High School, said these cuts affect her deeply. District officials face tough choices to address a $30 million budget shortfall, including staffing cuts.
“In virtually all of the schools in Portland Public, we’re seeing our classified staff, our library assistants, cut at all but two schools. Staff hours at our libraries are dropping drastically for next year, which is going to translate to libraries that are closed part of the week,” she said.
The impact of those cuts and closures will be felt by students, she said.
“It’s not just my job, it’s my passion. … I have students who are dealing with homelessness, and I have students who are emancipated minors,” she said. “I have students who are walking through grief, and they spend time in the library and find safety and solace and joy, not just in the literature that they have access to, but in the spaces that we’ve cultivated and grown in our schools.”
You can listen to the whole conversation with Jean Gritter and Ayn Reyes Frazee on “Think Out Loud” by pressing the play arrow above.