Council cuts school librarians in secret vote
Librarian calls libraries “The Great Equalizers”
by Gabrielle Drapeau
Staff, students, and parents have been left in tense limbo since they learned city council may cease funding school librarians as soon as April 1.
The word spread like wildfire amongst families that on March 18 council had recently voted (In Camera) to remove library support specialists (LSSs), i.e. school librarians, from the Supplementary Education Funding. Municipal Supplementary Education Funding is currently the only funding for school librarians. Changing the scope of the fund would move money that was paying librarians’ salaries and redistribute it.
City council has not made any indication that they are changing the amount they’re putting in the overall supplementary fund this year (they’re only allowed to lower it 10% per fiscal year). By removing LSSs from the scope of the funding, money would be freed up to put towards arts programming like music, dance, drama, and visual arts classes.
HRM has funded LSSs since amalgamation in the ‘90s through supplementary funding collected from municipal property taxes. This is in addition to the mandatory funding that every municipality in the province has to contribute to local education. While originally meant to support arts programming in public schools, the supplementary funding expanded soon after its creation to include LSSs, school social workers, additional teachers, and other staff.
Council pulling funding would threaten the jobs of 98 librarians across 137 schools in the HRM.
