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Pasco, Hernando schools make do without media specialists

 
After cutting media specialists, Pasco schools changed their approach to media centers. Here, Seven Springs Middle School science teacher Brian Zetsche helps seventh-graders Madison Slusser, left, Jessie Wyman, and Tori Redinger.
After cutting media specialists, Pasco schools changed their approach to media centers. Here, Seven Springs Middle School science teacher Brian Zetsche helps seventh-graders Madison Slusser, left, Jessie Wyman, and Tori Redinger.
Published April 1, 2016

Seven Springs Middle School principal Chris Dunning scanned his school's media center and liked what he saw.

Seventh-graders worked in groups at tables, researching earth sciences on laptops and then creating slide presentations they displayed on Apple TVs. Their teacher circulated, offering advice, while also taking time to update the online class module.

Other students signed out books, while the media center aide and learning design coach completed projects in connected offices.

Notably absent: The school's media specialist.

Pasco County schools eliminated media specialists three years ago to save nearly $5 million. About half of Hernando County schools followed suit, also to cut costs.

The idea was that the work once done by librarians — whether research, digital literacy or reading — could and should be integrated into teachers' daily lessons. Their salaries could then be transferred back into classrooms.

It's a trend statewide, though not everywhere. Sarasota and Marion county schools, for instance, also cut their media specialists, but nearby districts such as Hillsborough hired them, asserting the value of the job.

Across Florida, public schools have decreased librarians by 25 percent in the past decade, even as the number of schools increased. Other states including Ohio and North Carolina have moved in the same direction.

"We're adapting to what students and schools are doing today," Dunning said.

It wasn't an easy transition, as faculty, staff and students grappled with the model after little warning or preparation.

And it wasn't a choice that school leaders made willingly.

"If money were not a concern, we would not make the same changes," Hernando High School assistant principal Angela Miller Royal said. "We would have left the media center status quo."

The choice came down to the lesser of two evils.

"If the media specialist position remained, there would be another position lost, and that becomes tricky when you are dealing with core courses and class-size requirements," Miller Royal observed. "In addition, we need to consider the need to continue to offer electives for our students in our effort to prepare them for career or college post high school."

The faculty and staff who remained began to make do. They learned skills and took on added job responsibilities.

Volunteers also stepped in.

"We're finding our groove," said Seven Springs Middle media technology assistant Donna Cravens, who now essentially runs her school's media center. "I like what I'm doing now. I feel more helpful, at this point."

Hernando County's Westside Elementary School dropped its media specialist this year, after district officials told each principal to cut one position in the budget. Principal Kristina Garofano said a leadership team saw the position as one the school could afford to lose, without having a major impact on students.

"Our media center is still operational and students still have daily access to check out books," Garofano said. "Our teachers also have the ability to continue to use the media center as a resource for their class and for resources needed for their classroom instruction."

Experts who are watching this transformation don't see much good coming from it. "I would question whether these classroom teachers are really, fully prepared to take on the skills in which the school librarian is the expert," said Leslie Preddy, American Association of School Librarians president.

Preddy pointed to research indicating schools with media specialists have higher reading test scores than those without. She also noted that, at a recent conference, university educators stated that they could tell which students came from schools with well-staffed media centers.

Those who didn't, she said, lacked skills to comprehend, evaluate and analyze information.

"It's an uninformed, easy fix for budgets," Preddy said of cutting media specialists.

Nancy Everhart, a professor of information literacy at Florida State University, said she applauded teachers who have taken on the added role that media specialists once filled.

"They're making the best of the situation," she said. "I just think that media specialists provide a very unique service."

In making this case across the nation, Everhart, an international expert on the subject, created a poster of 100 things that students will miss if they don't have a school librarian. Those include instruction on how to use databases, and learning to do in-depth explorations of topics.

"This is really critical," she said. And "some of the teachers don't know what they don't know."

Media specialists have offered an overarching view of the school and its curriculum, and worked alongside teachers to improve students' learning, she said. It's not a role, she suggested, that can be easily replaced.

School leaders said they have found ways to stay true to the mission of the media center, though, and have trained educators who needed help.

"Change takes time," said Angie Shauger, assistant principal at Connerton Elementary in Land O'Lakes. "At first, some jump on. Others are slower to transition. Right now, everybody is on board."

At Connerton, changes came primarily in who worked in the center, not the type of work that got done.

"Our media center is kind of like … our kitchen, where kids and adults come to spend time together," principal Aimee Boltze said. "Our media center has not changed much in the last three years, except to say we balance out the technology with the books."

It has meant a steep learning curve for media technology assistant Diane Tomlinson, who now runs the center. She's in charge of everything from overdue reports to technology troubleshooting.

Instead of complaining, though, she finds a sense of accomplishment in having grown into her new job.

In Sarasota, which eliminated media specialists three years ago, the biggest challenges have come in secondary schools, curriculum director Sue Meckler said. Media aides aren't always familiar with the materials that students need for their research, she said.

But for the most part, Meckler said, the schools continue to view literacy as a foundation for education, and the teachers are prepared to use the research methods and reading lessons to continue that impetus.

"I do think the teachers are qualified," she said.

Seven Springs Middle seventh-grade science teacher Brian Zetzsche said the added resources and skills he has been provided has allowed him to better serve students.

"What we're able to accomplish in here is far greater than we could before," Zetzsche said.

Learning design coaches help integrate technology into lessons, he observed, and the schools have technicians to help keep the machinery updated. As a result, he said, students are interested, engaged and learning.

"I think it's a good thing," said Billy Artlip, 12, who worked with a partner on a presentation. "It's easier to find information."

Vic Mallett, the school's learning design coach, suggested that getting educators and students working together in this way is a good result.

"It's starting to finally roll in the right direction," he said.

Contact Jeffrey S. Solochek at jsolochek@tampabay.com or (813) 909-4614. Follow @JeffSolochek.