Sheboygan School District to cut 11 library media specialist positions

In a May 14 letter to families and staff, the Sheboygan Area School District announced the school board's decision to reduce the number of school library media specialists from 16 to 5. The remaining positions include one at each high school, one at the middle school level and two at the elementary level. The letter also announced plans for a meeting of staff, including the "core group" of media specialists, to meet during the summer to develop a plan for teaching essential library skills at each level.

A letter to the editor from Jo Ann Carr, director of the Center for Instructional Materials and Computing at UW-Madison and president of the Wisconsin Educational Media & Technology Association, appeared May 29 in the Sheboygan Press. Carr outlines the essential skills and important role that licensed media specialists bring to the school setting, including work with teachers in planning curriculum, knowledge of a range of databases and software, and direct instruction to students. She asks that since media specialists are licensed teachers whose absence will impact students directly, the school board use the same guidelines for reducing media specialist positions as they would for eliminating other teaching positions.