Latrice Martin spent one year in Wilbern Elementary School library before the position was cut. She returns to the classroom this year.

Latrice Martin spent her first year as a school librarian learning all she could about students and staff, curating a collection that reflected the elementary school’s community, and creating programs to promote literacy and excite kids about reading. She built relationships with staff and invited administrators in to read to the kids as she cultivated a welcoming atmosphere for her PreK-5 Wilbern Elementary School in Houston, TX.

“I was living my dream for a whole year, and then it was snatched from me,” Martin says.

On a 3 p.m. conference call one Friday in late April, Martin learned that her district, Cypress Fairbanks ISD (Cy-Fair) in Cypress, TX, would be eliminating 50 of its 92 full-time school librarian positions. It is one of many districts across the country cutting full-time librarian positions as the COVID federal stimulus ESSER funding ends in September.

Cuts in Cy-Fair were made based on librarian seniority. The news was shocking for the group, who had been told earlier that cuts were coming—but losing librarians was not mentioned as part of the budget plan.

As a matter of fact, the district had just paid for Martin to attend the Texas Library Association conference that month.

“I went and learned all these amazing things, learned about different legislation that they're trying to work on, learned different things to do in a library program, and I came back so excited,” she says. “I went to my leadership team meetings, explaining all these great ideas that I wanted to implement.”

That will not happen now.

In a lengthy statement, the superintendent blamed the cuts of librarians and other positions on a multitude of factors, including a decline in attendance, a district tax exemption, the cost of safety and security initiatives, inflation, and the expiration of ESSER funding.  

In that Friday meeting, librarians were told that four positions will remain for high school librarians covering 12 high schools, seven for the 20 middle schools, and 31 for 58 elementary schools, according to Martin. The following Tuesday, educators found out if they were losing their position in an email sent in the evening. Those being removed from the library became known as “excess” employees and would have access to classroom positions in the district if they wanted.

According to Martin, after the restructuring, there is not a Black librarian among the remaining 42 district librarians.

Martin's story illustrates the very personal loss to the student body across the district. Before becoming a librarian, Martin was a math and science teacher in the district and would read to her third grade students before lessons. Earlier in her career, a colleague suggested she pursue an MLIS. The district was cutting positions, though, so Martin went back to school for a master's in educational technology leadership instead to have more employment options. But her librarian dream continued.

Wanting to participate in her school's career day dress-up in the fall of 2020, she went as a librarian and her students told her she should be a librarian. She was always reading them books, after all. Later in the year, during the school's book fair, one student brought her a gift, Mrs. Brooks Loves Books! (And I Don't). The book by Barbara Bottner is the story of a librarian helping one reluctant reader find a book she loves. 

That was it. Martin decided to go back to school to be a librarian. She found a way to continue her full-time teaching job and raise a young son while getting her MLIS. When she was hired at Wilbern, the principal told Martin she chose her because she was such a good fit for the school community.

"The librarian is the heart of the school," Martin says. "You can't put any heart in any body."

She had a year in that dream job but will head into the 2024-25 school year as a fourth grade math and science teacher at Wilbern, in a room that looks onto her old library space.

“My classroom right now is right outside the library, and we don't have walls, so I'm going to open my door every day and be right there,” she says. “I've cried a lot this summer already, and I'm preparing myself. I'm going to have to watch somebody in a place that I love, the place that I built, and I have to prepare my mind for that.”

She will continue to promote literacy and try to foster a love of reading however she can, but she remains saddened at what’s being lost from her school and others around the district when students arrive on August 19. Without a full-time librarian, the specialized work of serving the particular school community cannot be done, says Martin, who created a collection that reflected the diversity of the approximately 900 students and faculty, including those who live in apartments or homes, are adopted, have military parents, are single parents, have two moms, and more. Librarians splitting their time between schools cannot learn about the kids and build the relationships like a full-time librarian can, she says. And librarians like Martin, who were on leadership committees in their full-time schools, can no longer be part of that bigger process either.

Noting community backlash and support, Martin says, “My hope is that things get turned around." For now, though, she will give it at least a year back in the classroom.

While the number of cuts in Cy-Fair is extreme, the coming end to ESSER funding is fueling a swell of librarian layoffs across the country. 

In multiple districts in NJ—including Flemington-Raritan, which lost two of the six media specialists, Township of Union Public Schools, which eliminated the high school librarian, and Union City, which cut three elementary library positions,—students will return to school without full-time certified school librarians in the building.

The middle school and high school in Ashland (OR) School District will be without a full-time, in-person librarian, and the Evergreen (WA) Public Schools cuts include 22 elementary teacher librarians, according to local news reports. Last year, Evergreen Public Schools cut the middle school and high school teacher librarians with the promise that they would try and work on the budget to reinstate them, media reported. Not only has that not happened, they are now cutting the elementary positions.

The Ashland and Evergreen districts did not respond to questions from SLJ.

In the Sitka (AK) School District, the superintendent told SLJ that the library positions were “restructured” and attempts are being made to return some previously lost positions.

“They [are] now framed as media specialists/literacy interventionists,” Deidre Jenson wrote in an email. “We have faced significant budget deficits this year, so we are trying to be creative about how to meet all the needs we have in our district while adding back in the technology component as well as the intervention needs. While the librarian at the high school was moved to another building [we] are still looking for ways to fill the media specialist/intervention position at the high school level. The middle school librarian position was cut prior to my coming here and I am trying to find ways to keep them all alive.”

In Franklin County, NC, all 11 school library media coordinators will move into vacant classroom teacher positions, and the libraries will be staffed with media assistants. The letter the district superintendent sent to staff and families read, in part:

“We, like districts all over the state, are working to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and looking at how we can have the greatest impact on student outcomes with the funds that we have. We have been focused for the past eight years on strengthening our media program, providing professional development and support, and revamping the media coordinator role to have the maximum impact on students.

“Despite those efforts, we have had inconsistency in the program. Over the past five years, FCS has experienced significant turnover in our media positions, affecting 87% of our schools. 40% of our schools have turned over two or more times in the past 5 years, and 27% of our schools have turned over 3 times in the past 5 years. We currently have 2 media coordinator vacancies.

“After careful consideration, I am transferring our media coordinators into classroom vacancies next year so that we can maintain our existing elementary interventionists and middle school instructional coaches for the upcoming year without increasing the overall number of employees next year requested for local funding.”

But it is not all bad news. In Lansing, MI, where the Lansing School District was set to eliminate certified school librarian positions in the K-8 buildings and move those educators to the classroom, community backlash and a coordinated advocacy campaign by the Michigan Association of School Librarians, with the help of AASL and ALA, appears to have moved the district to reinstate the positions. The new plan is expected to be presented to the school board for approval on Thursday, August 1.