Many enrichment activities including the Franklin High School poetry slam are created by teacher librarians like Ayn Reyes Frazee, and held in school libraries. In districts around Oregon, library staff cutbacks are resulting in reductions in services including wholesale closures for certain hours or whole days.
Courtesy Ayn Reyes Frazee
School districts all over Oregon are struggling to find the money to fund vital services with declining budgets. Many of those districts are making cuts to library staff, which librarians say has a direct result on educational outcomes for students. They also say these cuts are also in direct opposition to the educational goals districts say they’re committed to — providing tutoring, research help and safe spaces for students experiencing bullying or isolation. Joining us to talk more about these issues are Ayn Reyes Frazee, president of the Oregon Association of School Libraries and Franklin High School teacher librarian, and Jean Gritter, OASL advocacy chair and teacher librarian at West Albany High School.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. School districts all over Oregon are facing big budget gaps right now. A lot of programs and positions could be on the chopping block, including library staff. Librarians say that students and student performance will suffer as a result. Ayn Reyes Frazee is a teacher librarian at Portland’s Franklin High School and the president of the Oregon Association of School Libraries. Jean Gritter is the advocacy chair for the association, and the district librarian for the Greater Albany School District. They both join me now. It’s great to have both of you on the show.
Ayn Reyes Frazee: Thanks for having us, Dave.
Jean Gritter: Thank you.
Miller: Jean, first – can you give us a sense for what staffing and what potential cuts look like in your district right now?
Gritter: Well, I don’t know that we’ve got librarians in danger for next year, but we have dropped drastically in previous years. We had managed to gain back a few positions, and then this year those have been cut again. So we have 20 schools and we’ve got two teacher librarians this year.
Miller: What does that mean, in practice – 20 schools and two teacher librarians?
Gritter: What that means in practice is that only the students at the high school are getting the benefit of a teacher librarian. We have staff members in our elementary and middle school libraries who are doing fantastic work, and they’re working really hard, and they love kids, but they’re not teachers. So, the instruction piece is lost. So, instead of kids getting library and information literacy instruction from kindergarten through 12th grade, they’re really only starting to get that kind of instruction when they hit high school, in ninth grade.
Miller: Ayn, what about your school? And I should say, for folks who have forgotten – and we’re gonna be talking more in depth about this pretty soon with the interim superintendent of PPS – a $30 million budget gap right now. But what’s happening in terms of libraries at Franklin?
Reyes Frazee: At Franklin, currently, we have two adult staff members – myself, the teacher librarian, and my library assistant, Chris. In virtually all of the schools in Portland Public, we’re seeing our classified staff, our library assistants, cut at all but two schools. Staff hours at our libraries are dropping drastically for next year, which is going to translate to libraries that are closed part of the week.
Miller: What does that mean for students?
Reyes Frazee: Well, just on the base level, it means they don’t have access to the space. So, no checking out books, no returning books. But then on a bigger level, it’s that place where kids feel safe. It’s that place that students spend time when they’re decompressing or when they’re trying to self-regulate, it’s access to trusted adults in the building that they simply won’t see anymore.
Miller: And all of that will be closed off some portion of the day because of the cuts?
Reyes Frazee: Yes, I can’t say for every single library, but most libraries in our district will be open significantly less than they are this year.
Miller: Jean, the decline in librarians has been going on for more than a generation, now. In 1980, according to some data that you’ve put together for a presentation, there were 818 full-time licensed librarians in K-12 schools in the state. Last year, there were 160, serving obviously many more students. So we’re not just talking about a current budget crunch. We’re talking about something that’s been going on for more than 40 years. What is behind that decline?
Gritter: Well, I think in Oregon, it probably started with the changing of a lot of tax structure and so forth in the ‘90′s. I’m not an economist, so I don’t wanna try to dial that in too closely, but that is when things started. People started retiring out of libraries and they weren’t replaced. When cuts were made, people started looking to libraries to make them. And the real problem that we’re seeing now, is that we’ve got a generation of teachers and school administrators who may not have worked with a teacher librarian, a licensed librarian, in their careers, or in their own coming up through school. And so people don’t even realize what’s missing from library programs.
So the perception is that there’s someone in the library, there’s a happy person in there who’s going to check out a book to you, that everything’s OK, and people don’t realize how much is missing behind that first layer when you walk in.
Miller: So let’s dig into that. I think that you’ve probably just described many of us because I think there might be some sense that, if a library is open, kids can take books out, they can go in there – which actually Ayn was saying even that is less of a given in PPS, in other districts, I think, as well. But let’s say that kids do have access to a library and there is a kind, smart adult who can help them get books. But what are they missing if they don’t have a teacher librarian, or a licensed librarian, who is on staff there?
Gritter: What they’re missing, first and foremost, is instruction. Part of what we do, we’re teachers first, and librarians simultaneously. So the important things that we do are around information literacy, teaching kids what information is accurate and relevant and authoritative, and how do you identify that? We talk about media literacy, how do we identify bias and purpose, and figure out why are people giving us this information, and what is it that they want out of it? We talk about digital literacy, how do we use the devices we have available to extract the best and most thorough results that we need?
So all of these are the research skills that we can build on in the library. And all of these relate to identifying mis- and dis-information, which, as we know, just in that same last 40 years, has increased a million fold. That’s part of what we do.
Another huge aspect of having a licensed librarian in a library is the collection analysis. So you’ve got a whole bunch of books in a room, but how they get there is a mystery to most people. And what trained librarians are doing, what professional librarians are doing, is looking at those collections and analyzing them. Are they representing the students in this school? Are they representing the world at large? Are they supporting the curriculum? Are they at the right level, and the right topics, and all those things to engage readers and to bring those kids in so that they want to read more books? And if you’ve got nobody curating the collection in all of those ways, then you just have a bunch of books on shelves and they’re not necessarily doing what we’re hoping they’re going to do for kids.
And licensed librarians are also the ones who advocate for library budgets. Most of our schools in Oregon who don’t have teacher librarians in them also don’t have budgets. And so they’re relying on book fair sales to get books into there. And there’s no discernment about what’s available through those kinds of dollars, and there’s not sufficient funding to make sure that all of these other collection development and management things are happening.
And then in addition to that, there’s programming that pulls kids in. What are we doing in the library? Are we bringing in author visits, or are there programs that happen that pull kids in and get them engaged? And so, that’s the part where we can give them the books that they actually are going to be drawn into, and they’re going to get them reading, and all of those things build toward greater literacy skills. And one of the things that’s really frustrating for those of us in the school library world is that we’ve got a strong focus on literacy and why our literacy rates are dropping, but we’re not talking about school libraries, and there’s an integral piece to getting those literacy skills into the brains of those kids.
Miller: Ayn, what Jean just outlined there, it could broadly be categorized as societal misconceptions about the work that licensed librarians or teacher librarians bring to a library. To what extent do you think districts have those misconceptions as well?
Reyes Frazee: I found that even our own school board doesn’t recognize that there’s a difference between a teacher teaching in the library and a staff member taking care of the administrative side of the library. Our students have access to more information today than they ever have. And to have ...
Miller: We all do.
Reyes Frazee: Yes, we all do, but I’m thinking specifically of our Gen Z and Gen Alpha students who have this information at their fingertips, but without instruction, like explicit instruction, in information analysis and evaluation, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. They need that information. And I think adults, the decision makers in our district, recognize that our students need those skills, and it’s teacher librarians who, that’s our job.
Miller It occurs to me, it’s not just drinking from a fire hose, it’s maybe choosing a fire hose that has sewage in it.
Reyes Frazee: Yes.
Miller: It’s not just volume, but its quality.
Reyes Frazee: The advent of artificial intelligence is an exciting new tool in education, and our students, we’re building the plane as we’re flying it, we’re seeing the wildfire online, these artificially generated images and text. That’s going to increase as Pandora’s box is opened, and we need to explicitly instruct our students how to deal with that information and how to tell if something’s real or not real.
I think adults need that as well, but we’re here on the ground floor and we have this exciting opportunity to get our students educated around evaluation and critical thinking. And this is what libraries are doing.
Miller: Jean, I mentioned those numbers – a big drop in licensed librarians across the state in the last 40 years, and a huge increase in the ratio of students to librarians at the same time. Those obviously go hand in hand. Is this a nationwide phenomenon, or is Oregon an outlier here in terms of our reduction of teacher librarians?
Gritter: Well, there is a lot of this happening across the country, but it’s worse in Oregon than in many, many other places. For instance, I think personally the most important metric there is the ratio of teacher librarians to students. So, how many students is one teacher-librarian trying to help? And we rank 48th in the country on that measure. I’ve got some examples right here in front of me: Alabama has 1,305 teacher librarians in the state. And their teacher librarian to student ratio is 573. We have about 160 teacher librarians and our ratio is about 3,500 kids per teacher librarian. We have 197 school districts in Oregon and we have 160 teacher librarians.
Miller: Ayn, what do you see as the connection between a strong student library program and student success?
Reyes Frazee: The connection is, they can’t exist without each other. I mean, of course, students can be successful, but a school library, and a strong school library program boosts that success. There’s so much data out there, so many studies, that schools with school libraries that are staffed by certified professionals do better on all academic metrics and it’s regardless of socio-economic status.
I know that school libraries are leveling the playing field for some of our students who might not have access to technology at home, or literature at home, or adults who can support them in their academic pursuits at home. Libraries are doing that work, and they’re accessible to all students. It’s not just students who are taking a specific class, or students who are in a specific program. Libraries are supporting every student, and the teachers as well. I’m a resource for our staff consistently finding high quality resources to use with their students.
Miller: Jean, in the absence of more money, which obviously you would like to see, superintendents are saying that currently they have to simply make some very hard choices, they have to cut something. What should be cut, if not library services?
Gritter: Well, that certainly is the tough question. Obviously, all of the services that we provide to students are very important. I think what I would suggest is that many school administrators don’t realize the value that they have in teacher librarians, because we are also trained in collaboration with classroom teachers. We are teachers who can assist, we can mentor younger teachers. We’re pulling resources and making content-area teachers’ instruction easier, or more flexible, or greater ranging.
I think that often school administrators see all of these other support personnel that they’re trying to put into place, and instructional coaches, and other resources. And I think that is a place where they should probably turn and look at their teacher librarians because they’re benefiting not only those instructional pieces, but also the other supports that the library is providing. So it’s a bigger bang for the buck, as it were.
Miller: Ayn, we just have about a minute left, but what does it mean to you to be a teacher librarian?
Reyes Frazee: It’s not just my job, it’s my passion. I see the way that libraries support students and impact them in a real way. I have students who are dealing with homelessness, and I have students who are emancipated minors. I have students who are walking through grief, and they spend time in the library and find safety and solace and joy, not just in the literature that they have access to, but in the spaces that we’ve cultivated and grown in our schools.
Miller: Ayn Reyes Frazee and Jean Gritter, thank you very much.
Reyes Frazee: Thank you, Dave.
Gritter: Thank you, Dave.
Miller: Ayn Reyes Frazee is the president of the Oregon Association of School Libraries, also a teacher librarian at Franklin High School in Southeast Portland. Jean Gritter is the advocacy chair for that association, the Oregon Association of School Libraries, also the district librarian for the Greater Albany School District.
Contact “Think Out Loud®”
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.