Jatinder Bir, President of the Surrey Teachers’ Association, is urging Surrey school trustees and local MLAs to put the brakes on a Surrey School Board decision that will significantly reduce library services in elementary schools.
She says it’s a mistake to pull teacher-librarians away from their core duties to give classroom teachers the prep time they are entitled to—instead, the Surrey School Board should be investing in recruiting more staff.
In their last round of bargaining, the BC Teachers’ Federation negotiated a 10-minute weekly increase in preparation time for elementary school teachers, bringing the weekly prep time to 120 minutes, which is still well below the national average. Prep periods are used by classroom teachers to plan and prepare lessons, while their classes are taught by specialist teachers such as music teachers, French teachers, or teacher-librarians. The additional funding for staffing the increase in prep time will be allocated to allschool districts, including Surrey, by the Ministry of Education starting in September 2023.
The Surrey Teachers’ Association advocated for the additional 10 minutes to be added to elementary music teacher staffing, in order to enhance music education for our young students.
Instead, the Surrey School Board decided teacher-librarians would cover the additional prep time for all primary classes, without increasing staffing levels for teacher-librarians.
These additional duties for teacher-librarians will be devastating to the level of library service they can provide for the entire school population. The losses will be particularly felt in intermediate classes for students aged 9 to 13, who face losing their only access to collaborative time with teacher-librarians in school libraries.
“If the Surrey School Board goes ahead with this decision, students will lose out on far more than simple book exchanges; they will lose out on integral learning opportunities,”Bir says.
A reduction to teacher librarian collaboration time means losses to learning opportunities such as: safe space for diverse and marginalized learners, Applied Design, Skills, and Technology opportunities, Essential lessons on digital citizenship, and Class work in collaboration with teacher-librarians on District equity initiatives such as race, ability, and gender.
“It is very disappointing that this incredible work by our teacher-librarians has been recognized nationally but does not seem to be valued by our school board,” said Bir.
She continued: “The district told us they are making this decision because finding additional music teachers would be challenging. The truth is that many qualified music teachers in Surrey are not currently teaching music because they cannot find full-time music assignments. Increasing music teacher entitlement would make the position of elementary music teacher much more appealing to qualified music teachers. Retention must be about more than just numbers; it must also be about creating positions that teachers want to be in.”
There is no doubt that there is a teacher shortage at this time, but this plan is a regressive solution to a short-term problem that will have long-term devastating consequences to our elementary schools. The Board seems to want to move libraries back to a time when they were merely places for book exchanges.
The Surrey Teachers’ Association is astounded that the Surrey School Board would choose to not use the funding that was collectively bargained to support the work of award-winning teacher-librarians. It’s hard to imagine why the Board would have passed up the opportunity to enhance elementary music education and is choosing instead to harm award-winning and innovative library programs.
For more information or to arrange an interview, call 604-594-5353 or email [email protected].
