Library cuts teach students wrong lesson about literacy, parent says

A locked, darkened library is sending the wrong message on literacy to students at a Mahone Bay school, according to a parent at the school.

Bayview Community School, which serves students in grades Primary to 9, has not had a full-time librarian since 2013. This year, there is only a librarian in the school two days a week.

Kara Turner has three children at the school, and said that as a parent, she has encouraged her children to value literacy. 

"We want that to be reinforced when the children go to school and they walk past the school library every day.… And the days when the school library isn't open, I think they're sent the wrong message."

Fundraising goals taxing

Since 2013, the school has had a librarian three days a week, with the community contributing part of the funds for that position. 

This year, the number of days the library was staffed dropped to two, and Turner said parents have had to double their fundraising target to $7,000 for the year, which is half of the total costs. 

"Seven thousand dollars is a lot for us to raise. We're a fairly small school. We only have 405 students."

• Struggling N.S. school board cuts librarians

Turner said the South Shore Regional School Board's decision to cut funding for librarians was made without consulting the parents.

"There was no announcement, there was no public engagement of any sort as far as I'm concerned. We were told by the principal the day that it happened."

Theresa Schroder, communications co-ordinator for the South Shore Regional School Board, said the decision to reduce funding was made at board meetings that were open to the public.

Move to learning commons model

Schroder said these discussions happened alongside conversations about moving to a learning commons model, in which instructional coaches help teachers use a space that combines books and new technologies.

"This is a very progressive, forward-looking way of doing libraries," she told the CBC's Information Morning. "So it's definitely not going against literacy, it's not against books, nothing like that. It's just expanding it.

But Turner, who is also president of the Bayview Home and School Association, said they're advocating for a solution that would allow any South Shore schools who want to have a traditional library to do so.

"If [students] walk past an empty room where the lights are off, they're told reading isn't important, literacy isn't key, we're not willing to fund something such as books in schools."