U-46 bring our librarians back full time!

Our Librarian are so important they are the foundation of all our learning process.

bring them back we need all school personel

Bring them back!! :)

Please bring back our librarians!

One of the goals of Destination 2015 is to have 98% of 1st graders at Reading Level, we are losing our chance to get 1st graders excited about reading. There is no time for the librarian to read to the students, who knows if the children are read to at home. That leaves the student, who is not quite yet reading, to try and read the book the best they can and maybe get discouraged and just put the book down, because books are boring. Dr. Torres, I know costs are an issue but I do not believe the librarian's salaries are among the higher salaries in the district, yet their impact is huge. I can handle 30 kids in my daughter's 1st grade classroom, but when my daughter finishes her books and wants more, she has to wait 2 weeks to be able to bring more books home. Our full time librarian at Horizon allowed students to come in before school and during the school day to return and check out more books, we can't do that with a part-time librarian, she just doesn't have the time. My son is struggling to find a series that he hasn't read and is engaging enough so he will finish the chapter book, I know Mrs. Spengler would have found a series for him, because she knew him. Please reconsider adding full time librarians back into the schools for the upcoming school year.

Thank you Joyce for starting this petition. The library is vital to a school and having our children given once every other week to visit the library is a disgrace. Timber Trails really misses Mrs. Astrug.

There's a reason we call it a Learning Center, not just a library. Teachers and students are feeling the loss of this important resource, not just in terms of the loss of time for checking out books, but also the loss of access to the computers in the Learning Center (a larger issue for many of our students who don't have home computer access and for overflow of too large classes in the computer labs); the inability of Librarians to teach the classes they used to teach to our students (resource use, research, etc.); the lack of the library for use in homework clubs and daily lunch groups; and more. How can we say we're focusing on LITERACY and then close the Learning Center for half the school year?

Cut back on the superintendents' salaries/bonuses!

There is a petition to bring our library service back to every week. Our current librarian is nice, but she is splitting her time between two schools. Need more dedicated librarian

Why is Torres adding administrative positions when the classroom is still suffering excessive class sizes and lack of support staff such as librarians. The classroom teacher needs the support of a fully functioning library. Public libraries cannot fill the void because they do not buy for the curriculum as librarians do.

I agree 100%. As a librarian who was laid off from my position at U46 I know first hand how important it is for the children to learn that reading is not only for learning facts but for pure enjoyment of reading.
My students, many of whom live in my neighborhood, tell me all the time how much they miss me. I miss them more!

Let's make reading a priority!

School librarians are critical to literacy skills and other important curriculum elements like research skills and internet safety to name just two. Bring them back full time!

Our students are affected by not being exposed to books each week especially if parents are not supportive of their child(s) education.

The work of librarians is not only organizing bookshelves, but guiding and educating visitors on ways to find any information effectively. Librarians are the ones go beyond the internet so the information is more easily acccessible. Librarians can provide the right guidance to students for a better understaanding of how to search for a particular source or text.

Reading is important we need staff to keep the libraries open for all the kids of all ages!!!

#56: Felice Ehrlich -  You truly honor me! I miss Timber Trails - the best students, staff and wonderful PTO President!

 

So many of the students do NOT get to the public libraries around the area. Going only once every other week is NOT enough to build the love of reading. They need to have the variety the school's library offers as well as HEAR stories read by the librarian!

I do miss having a librarian full time, however, we do not NEED them to help our children with their literacy goals. They are important, but certainly not crucial. If I had to choose between keeping classroom teachers hired and bringing back full time librarians, I would choose teachers.

My classroom library is not amazing, but it is sufficient. When I am lacking books on certain subjects or genres, I get a collection from Gail Borden or ask my school librarian to pull a collection for me. It takes a little more planning and effort on my part, but it is still doable. My part time librarian also allows my students to check out 3-4 books/checkout period which is truly enough for them when combined with my classroom books. We also need to encourage our families to become members of Gail Borden. There is NO cost involved (so long as they return their books on time) and there is a HUGE collection of literature in a variety of genres, reading levels, and content.


Obviously, if we were a debt free district then having full tine librarians and clerical aides would be great, but I am not in favor of rehiring the librarians at the expense of larger classroom numbers due to fewer classroom teachers.

#70: Ann Onymous - An extra 50 minutes of library time is not the answer... 

We are not choosing between teachers and librarians. Overcrowded schools are a different problem. Many children are not brought to the public libraries by their parents so the school libraries are all they have. Plus the librarians are very overwhelmed by the amount of books they have to re-shelve in addition to reading to the kids and guiding them on what book works best for them and any other duties they have when only working part-time. The district is pushing for literacy and sacrificing other things such as handwriting and spelling so it makes no sense that the library should be un-operative 1/2 the year. This petition will also be brought to the state reps and government officials in the hopes that the state can fund the district with the money they are owed. 

I am an ex-u-46 librarian who left the year they cut the high school libraries down to one person. It makes me very sad to see the state of the program since there is only one person serving 2900 students. It is impossible to do much more than unlock the doors. My children are also in the district, and I hate the fact that they are only allowed to go to the library once every two weeks. Apparently the literacy push in the district isn't important enough to fully staff the libraries. Take a look at the Illinois Study - properly staffed libraries INCREASE reading scores! Hmmm, interesting.

I ask myself about the quality of education that will be available for our children. Not all students learn at the same rate or have the same resources at home. Those who have a more nurtures home environment with many resources will grasp concepts and skills easily. Those kids will not be affected by part time librarians at their schools. However, there is another group of students that need more resources and more positive role models such as librarians. Teachers want to give our special students the finest reading but there is not time to look at thousands of children's books to find the best. That's where librarians come in. They select books, they read to students, they organize reading events in coordination with parents and teachers. They are instrumental in the education of our children. Our students have the right to receive a quality education.

How do we want our students to read and increase their reading scores if they do not have access to books? Librarians are people who motivate students to read; many of our students only have access to books that are in the school libraries!
It is an absolutely necessary to bring back librarians full time to all U-46 elementary schools.

I whole-heartedly support this petition. I've always felt it was disingenuous of the district to cut libraries and yet commit to vigorous literacy efforts. The action doesn't match the intention. I sincerely hope those with authority to bring back full time libraries in school district U-46 would, in good conscience, do so.