Sarah Eileen Linder: Covid-19 claims lives of school libraries

The South Park and Greensburg Salem school districts are struggling with the harsh reality facing schools across the nation whose budgets simply could not withstand the financial consequences of a global pandemic; they have decided to make budget cuts.

The loss of teachers, administration and programming is always upsetting, but the two school boards’ decisions to eliminate librarian positions has left gaping holes in the schools and shocked communities. The South Park School Board voted to eliminate high school and middle school librarian positions, while the Greensburg Salem board decided to remove full-time librarians from the elementary and middle schools and eliminate library classes.

On its face, the shuttering of a school library may seem a product of the digital age; but upon deeper contextualization, a school library closure may threaten the very nature of the foundational educational experience.

A school library, as facilitated and supervised by a librarian, is an open access point to information for the student body, but more importantly, the library is a physical example of successful, organized information in practice. The books, computers and other content within library walls are intrinsically valuable for their inherent content. However, the library itself serves as an example of a multitude of processes that when taught to students can be the difference between a lifetime skill of personally curating important knowledge or an aimless search for resources in an unnavigable sea of content.

Libraries are rendered functionally obsolete without the presence of librarians, especially in schools where the supervision and instruction of students is the primary purpose. Without a librarian, it is unlikely that teachers and administrators will be able to adequately supervise students in the facility while also overburdened with teaching duties. Librarians receive highly specialized training without which the facility would likely fall into disarray, even when a school is not operating at a financial and labor deficit.

The decisions by the South Park and Greensburg Salem school boards highlight the problems with trying to make fair value judgments about the worth of school library services.

First, some argue that young adults in their high school years need less guidance when it comes to information sorting, and that they are inherently more capable of accessing a variety of resources on their own, while young children need library services to aid in basic foundations of literacy.

Second, and in the alternative, the consequences of restricting library access for older students may possibly be much weightier. Young adults are given more responsibility as they age, and as such, the ability to access reliable, vetted information in a library setting has higher stakes for young adults facing a variety of educational challenges including poverty, mental health issues and differences in learning capabilities.

While older students may need access to a library to excel in all areas of their lives, inside and outside of school, basic literacy courses are necessary starting at kindergarten to build students’ abilities to build literacy skills, including information literacy such as finding information, forming opinions, and evaluating sources.

Both of these arguments as to which students need a library the most are two sides of the same coin, and the decision of which library services to cut should never be made at all, because the truth is that school libraries facilitated by librarians are crucial in all stages of education.

The assertion that students of certain ages get more utility out of a library more than others is a fallacy. Students of all ages benefit in different respects from library access, and to assert otherwise is simply to value the holistic educational experience of some students over others when both groups are entitled to the baseline services a public school has been created to provide, like a library with a librarian.

Lastly, the operation of a school library is essential to the pursuit of equity in schools. The ability for low-income students to access valuable content ranging from information on colleges, social programs and community resources on the internet to free novels and magazines means they can meaningfully bridge the gap between their more economically secure peers. In some instances, access to these resources could be the difference between a meal on the table, a job interview, or feeling safe and supported. Regardless of socioeconomic status or inherent bookishness, some students simply need a quiet place to go in order to learn.

In a time of such turmoil in our society, where people of all ages are bombarded with images of graphic racial violence, misinformation about the state of our government, competing conspiracy theories about global health crises and proof of a deteriorating planet due to climate change, among other highly personal, emotional stimuli, it is crucial that we teach young people how to navigate and synthesize this information.

Young adults are already proving themselves worthy of our trust and respect, and to impair their access to one of the few spaces in a school free of standardized exams and the institutional pressures of school is doing them a great disservice that they do not deserve. If a school district is able to provide students with the ability to utilize a weight room, sports field or gymnasium, the least it could do is provide an essential service that speaks right to the core purpose of a school, a library for the pursuit of knowledge.

Both districts adopted finalized budgets on June 29. Greensburg Salem not only voted to eliminate the library program in the elementary and middle schools, but also eliminated elementary band, a high school technology instructor, and the community liaison position responsible for securing grant funding. South Park School District eliminated the middle and high school librarian positions, but adopted resolutions to hire a new cheerleading instructor, a track and field coach, a soccer coach, and two football coaches in addition to adopting a plan to rephase into athletics and install new cameras in the athletic facilities to record athletic events that could very well be unsafe and nonexistent in the coming school year.

Sarah Eileen Linder is a 2020 Duquesne Law graduate.