School librarians in HRM still at risk of being cut

by Jenna McConnell

School librarians in the HRM face being abruptly fired as negotiations between council and Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE) about the future of the librarians’ funding continue.

The HRCE employs between 75 and 100 librarians, or library support specialists, in its schools. They are paid through the Halifax Regional Municipality’s supplementary education fund, which was nearly $13 million this past school year. The library program gets about $2.5 million of that total funding.

Some affected librarians found out about the potential cut from a Facebook post of minister of education and early childhood development Brendan Maguire.
Cheryl Chambers has been a school librarian for 18 years now.
“You feel good about what you do,” Chambers says. “You’re helping give a safe place to students who are obviously in need of it. Teachers change each term, but I’m there all the time.”

Her duties in the school go much further than simply shelving books. Chambers also handles the maintenance of all the school’s laptops. She helps students with printing résumés, university applications, and she even runs the school’s Duke of Edinburgh program.

Chambers found out about her position getting axed by council at the same time as the public, through the Facebook post on social media by Maguire. This post appears to have been deleted since. Grand Parade reached out to Maguire for comment, but did not receive a reply in time for publication.