California: 100,000 Los Angeles Elementary Students Still Without Libraries
From KPCC Radio:
About 40 percent of Los Angeles Unified elementary schools still lack the staff to open libraries, leaving about 100,000 students without a way to borrow books on campus, according to figures recently released by the district.
During budget hearings last spring, Superintendent John Deasy promised to spend $6 million to bring back the 192 library aides who would help open shuttered elementary libraries across the district this school year.
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“Students don’t learn literacy skills (in the library). They learn that through trained teachers,” Deasy told KPCC in 2011, after the cuts were announced.
But despite a commitment to rehire staff, the number of elementary library aides have decreased by about 20 percent since last fall.
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Filed under: Libraries, School Libraries
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.