HCRHS Retains their School Librarians

On Monday, April 26th, the school board for the Hunterdon Central Regional High School (HCRHS) in Flemington, NJ listened to public pressure and removed the elimination of school librarians from the agenda.

EveryLibrary got involved at the last minute, but the school librarians only found out the previous Friday. We appreciate the note from one of the local advocacy team when she wrote;

"We can’t thank you enough for taking the time to talk to us—it really helped us finalize our game plan going into that meeting, and we got the best possible outcome in that the board unanimously voted to keep the third media specialist position. Thank you SO MUCH for your support as we dodged that bullet!"

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However, we are sorry to report that while we're celebrating at HCRHS another district in New Jersey, the School District of the Chathams, went through with its cuts to the school librarian jobs. Our colleagues at the New Jersey School Librarians Association were directly involved in advocacy there. We were proud to host and promote a petition asking the superintendent to reverse his decision that garnered over 600 signatures in the district and around the country. We know from the research that their decision to cut school librarians will have a lasting negative impact on student achievement. 

School districts across the country continue to target school librarians for cuts, RIFs, pink slips, and excessing. This is happening despite a tremendous amount of pandemic relief support from Congress that is intended to stop layoffs in order to focus on student achievement. As a country, we should be hiring more school librarians to help reverse the COVID Slide. Students and families are hurting right now, and the unique, important, and high-impact work of a school librarian in every school would go a long way to addressing those academic and social-emotional problems. 

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EveryLibrary is working to support school librarians and school library budgets in districts and states across the country. In New York City we are partnering with NYCLSA to restore school librarians to their libraries this fall. In Washington, DC we are helping to fight draconian cuts to the workforce alongside the Washington Teachers Union. And in Nevada, we supported the CCSLA's campaign for a new district policy in Clark County to secure jobs for certified school librarians. EveryLibrary brings the digital campaign tools that are needed to activate parents, the public, and educational stakeholders along with expert advice and support that is relevant to each specific state or district - or even a single school.

We do all of this work for school librarians pro-bono and for free because of our donors. If you believe that it's important to have a politically active organization like EveryLibrary fighting actively for the future of school librarian jobs and budget, please donate today. There are so many cuts happening in school districts across America this spring. Help us help ensure that every student has a school librarian in their academic life. 

John Chrastka
Executive Director