School libraries face dwindling funding here as elsewhere

The funding and staffing of Oregon school libraries have deteriorated over the past two decades, according to a report issued last week by State Librarian Jim Scheppke. Sisters schools appear to offer no exception.

Scheppke's report said: "...we know that in 1980 Oregon schools employed 818 certified library/media specialists, equivalent to one librarian for every 547 students. In 2003, there were only 461 certified library/ media specialists working in Oregon schools, equivalent to one librarian for every 1,196 students."

The study compared individual Oregon schools with ideal "prototypes" that constitute the Quality Education Model (QEM). That model was produced in late 2002 by the Quality Education Commission, a body created by the Legislature to estimate what high quality public schools would require in terms of staff and budget.

The model specifies one certified library/media specialist plus one full-time support person in high schools and middle schools. Elementary schools should have at least a half-time specialist and a half-time support person. The materials budgets for purchasing books, periodicals and other items are set at $31 per student for elementary schools, $39 per student for middle schools and $56 per student for high schools.

Scheppke's survey, using 2002-03 data, showed that only two Oregon schools met the QEM standards, an elementary school in Silver Falls School District and a middle school in Ontario.

Despite the staffing decline noted above, far more schools met the QEM's staffing goals than the goals for a materials-purchasing budget. The report notes that staffing levels were met by 29 percent of the elementary schools, 14 percent of the middle or junior high schools, and 31 percent of the high schools.

Sisters High School would have met the staffing requirement up through 2000. That was the year media specialist Sue Beck retired.

The school would have partly satisfied the requirement through last year, 2003-04, because after retirement Beck worked two-thirds time on a year-to-year contract until last year.

She is the only certified media specialist Sisters has ever had.

"When I was hired here in 1975," she recalled last week, "we just had the K to 8. That (her hiring) was pretty bold then. Some urban school districts had gone to elementary librarians but not many rural ones. And I was well funded. It was just me for several years and then we hired an aide. So we were pretty high up on the ladder."

She went to the high school library/media center when the new combined middle and high school building opened in 1992. As a rehired retiree, she worked one year (2003-04) in the district's newest high school building.

Job terminology is significant in this field. A "certified library/media specialist" as specified in the QEM standard has a state certificate equivalent to a teaching certificate.

Most of the school libraries today are run by "media managers." They often have college degrees and relevant training and experience, but they do not have state certificates. That makes a difference, especially in pay.

Sisters School Superintendent Ted Thonstad acknowledges that, "even big districts will only have one or two media specialists today. That's what's happening around the state because that media specialist is a certified person who requires a certified salary and districts are being forced to look for ways to reduce those dollars."

Media Managers Barbara Haynes at Sisters Middle School and Marie Phillips at the elementary school have considerable experience. Both worked with Beck in the past. Jade Schneringer at the high school is new to the media manager's job there this year.

None of the three has a budget that approaches the standards of the Quality Education Model.

Current-year budgeted media center amounts for books, periodicals, software licenses and related materials come to $2,700 for the elementary school, $4,550 for the middle school and $7,200 for the high school.

Based on October enrollments, the per-student budgets work out as follows, with the QEM recommendations in parentheses: elementary school, $6 per student ($31 per student); middle school $15.06 per student ($39 per student); high school $13.61 per student ($56 per student).

Beck said, "I feel like you judge a school by a number of things, and one of them is setting an environment that makes learners. The library, the media center, whatever you call it these days is one of the areas that is really important to that atmosphere."

The state librarian's report says: "In 2001 the Oregon Educational Media Association commissioned a research study by Dr. Keith Curry Lance that proved that Oregon reading test scores are higher in schools with higher quality school libraries.

"The relationship between good school libraries and higher test scores held true even when differences in schools (class size, etc.) and students (poverty, parents' education, etc.) were taken into account."