An Open Letter To Dr. Latham:
This letter is meant to express my outrage and dismay that the librarians have been eliminated from this year’s school budget. With all of the trouble Lynn schools are having with the MCAS tests, how can you justify making school libraries such a low priority in the educational budget?
This area has served as the cradle of education with so many prestigious institutions of higher learning distinguishing the landscape. To make such a irresponsible budgetary move lessen our chances of qualifying for all the federal monies you are counting on to rescue our failing school system.
Two of the seven dedicated libraries are in the Level 4 schools so it boggles my mind how this move can be incorporated in their proposed turn around plans. This lack of forethought puts Lynn’s control of it’s own school system in jeopardy. The state and federal Departments of Education could see this move as a signal that they need to step in and assume management of the city’s educational system.
More than all of that, the kind of person one becomes is determined by what they read. If there is nothing to read in school what kind of person will he or she become? Given the state of Lynn’s test scores, we should be adding libraries not eliminating librarians.
Hopefully you will do everything in your power to reverse this atrocity and prevent the further devastation of our educational system. To insure this matter gets the serious attention it deserves, I am asking all concerned parents to join me at the public hearing on the budget for the 2010-2011 budget at Breed on August 30th at 7:00 pm. According to my understanding of the budgetary process, if the Lynn School Committee can free up money by making line item cuts, you would then have the discretion of restoring the position.
Given your long and distinguished career in education, I am sure you are in harmony with that goal. Otherwise a sour note will be struck for our future.
Stanley H. Wotring, Jr.
Lynn
I have such fond memories when my children were young of volunteering to help the school librarian and reading to groups of young children - and when I was young of learning how to research for a paper and work together as a team - libraries are such a central part of education and learning to appreciate learning. All cities need school libraries - especially a poor city like Lynn with low performing schools
ReplyDeleteSo very true!
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