By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
Families for School Libraries, a group of 50 Sitkans that formed in mid-October to protest the school board’s decision to cut funding for the Blatchley Middle School library, says it wants to raise public awareness about threats to public education funding in general.
“Education funding is an important topic right now with a new governor who is seen as unfriendly to public education preparing to set the state budget,” said Beth Short-Rhoads, spokesperson for Families for School Libraries. “Our group is an example of citizens and school administrators coming together to problem-solve rather than argue in a tough political climate.”
The state continues to face deficit budgets, and Gov. Dunleavy has said he will focus on overall cuts in government spending.
“We totally know this and to be honest I think we all just feel like, yes, we might not accomplish anything but what we really can’t do right now is just sit back and throw up our hands,” Short-Rhoads said. “We can’t just say ‘well, there goes the library, there goes sports programs, there goes foreign language.’ We just have to keep doing what we can do, otherwise we just give up and then everything just starts going like dominoes.”
Blatchley Middle School eighth-grader Kanen Alley checks out a book from Abe Kanter, a Youth Advocates of Sitka volunteer, at the Blatchley library during school lunch break. (Sentinel Photo by Klas Stolpe)
The group’s two main goals are to advocate for full reopening of the Blatchley Middle School library, and to work with local school officials for more state funding.
Until this year the Blatchley library had a full-time librarian and was open 40 hours a week. Hours have been reduced in the current budget to four hours per week (Monday-Thursday, 8:30-9:20 a.m.) and no full-time librarian.
The citizens has been speaking out at local assembly and school board meetings and advocating on social media. They hosted a soup dinner and letter writing session at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church that resulted in 50 communications to local school officials. They have gathered multiple letters of support through the past months which have been passed on to Sitka’s Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.
“The first thing we are doing is having a legislator call-in,” Short-Rhoads said.
The group will host the call-in at the Blatchley Library on Monday, January 28, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. They encourage people to drop by for afternoon snacks or a light dinner while contacting the governor and lawmakers.
“We will have computers, phones, and talking points on hand,” Short-Rhoads said. “Whether you would like to see the Blatchley library staffed with a librarian or simply increased funding for all Alaska schools, now is the time to weigh in before our state’s budget is finalized. Students or parents or anyone else in the community that wants to come in can do that... we need to do that before the budget is set in February.”
Short-Rhoads said they have followed a suggestion by district superintendent Mary Wegner, and have been working with Great Alaska Schools, a statewide non-partisan coalition advocating for a quality public education for every child.
“Just kind of educating ourselves about how the legislative process works,” she said. “How schools are funded or how they are not funded. The budget was cut, important resources were cut from the school district and parents got upset. One thing I have heard from pretty much everybody in administration is “thank you for trying to do something.”
“Instead of just coming into the school board and complaining we are actually taking some steps to try to find solutions. We are trying to stay positive. We know things are going to be cut. We have been told that if the library is funded then something else will have to go, but what we believe is everybody needs to speak up. If we have the library people, the PAC people, the people who are in to sports, the people who want their kids to learn a foreign language or play a musical instrument - if we all come together and just say “this isn’t enough,” it probably isn’t going to solve the problem, honestly, but it at least is going to not let people wander through the next few years asleep. We are really encouraging people to stand up for education in all forms.”
Short-Rhoads said their group also volunteers in the Blatchley library during the school lunch period (Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.).
“But of course volunteers aren’t librarians,” she said. “And we can’t do any of the things a librarian does including recommend books to kids. Because we don’t know enough about books and we don’t know enough about the students. And I am not even sure if that would be the appropriate thing for a volunteer to do.”
Short-Rhoads said their group quickly realized they are no substitute for a real librarian and just how much kids are losing by not having a full-time library. She cited a survey by Blatchley English teacher Emily Demmert using Schoology, a learning management system within the district. It showed 30 percent of Blatchley studens did not visit the school library at all since the start of the fall term, and another 27 percent had been to the library fewer than five times.
“This probably means that the low income population that is struggling with the achievement gap no longer is having any access to books,” Short-Rhoads said. “Libraries are really important to helping kids identify what sources they can actually relay on as far as finding facts. We all know the Internet is full of fake everything. Libraries offer a lot of software programs and online encyclopedias that offer actual reliable information.”
