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School librarians hit hardest by budget cuts

Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school district forced to slash $5.6 million next year
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Maple Ridge Teachers Association members protested education funding Tuesday as the election officially got underway.

School libraries won’t remain the resources to students that they are now, if the Ridge Meadows School Board goes ahead with its proposed 2013-2014 budget.

That’s the opinion of Halia Hirniak, the district helping teacher-librarian, who notes secondary libraries have been hard hit by a budget that saw the board forced to cut $5.6 million.

She notes the secondary teacher-librarians in School District 42 are facing possible reduction in their positions by 50 per cent. That means that each secondary school will have only one half time Teacher-Librarian staffing their library.

“As a group, we are both dismayed and disappointed at this proposal, and we hope to present at the School Board Public meeting this Wednesday evening (tonight),” she said.

She said six of the positions will be cut to half time. Teacher-librarians are all certified educators, and she expects they will make up the loss of income by taking on more classroom hours. She said most of the people effected have ten ore more years of service. The issue is the loss of the resource.

“It’s a major reduction in service to the students.”

She said the teacher librarians specialize in online research and using technology to gain information. “Kids are really good at technology – knowing what buttons to push, but they’re not so good with information – knowing what to do with it.”

She said they also work to boost literacy.

“We’re great book pushers. We’re there because we’re passionate about reading.”

She said each high school used to have two full-time teacher-librarians, and now they will be down to one half-time position.

“Everybody’s dismayed.”

More than 80 Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows teachers took to two busy local intersections on Tuesday morning, the first day of the provincial election campaign, to protest the current government’s funding of education.

“Teachers wanted to remind commuters that under the Liberal government, public education has suffered.

“It’s time to end the decade of cuts,” MRTA president George Serra said.

Teachers at the corners of Lougheed Highway and 222nd Avenue, and also at Harris Road and Lougheed Highway in Pitt Meadows, held signs calling on the next government to re-invest in public education.

“The school district’s preliminary budget for 2013/14 proposes to slash $5.6 million – cutting teaching, support, custodial and maintenance positions, as well as a host of other district services,” said Serra.

“The fact that School District 42 wants to reduce, by half, the number of secondary teacher librarians flies in the face of both district and Ministry statements that lifelong learning and literacy is tantamount to education.

“We need a new government that has sound ideas and a willingness to restore public education.”



Neil Corbett

About the Author: Neil Corbett

I have been a journalist for more than 30 years, the past decade with the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News.
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