In essence, Chicago and its schools hate their librarians.

The city that hates librarians!

The city of Chicago has many troubling issues on its plate these days. Whether it's a soaring murder rate, budget troubles, corruption accusations being flung with abandon, or trying to survive another Midwestern winter, the city is having a rough time. Now, problems have affected the school system as well.

Budget woes and contract negotiations with the teacher's union has led to one major area of the local school to lose an important staff member: the school librarian.

According to Southside Weekly and DNA Info, things look dire for the 2016/2017 school year:


2016:  157 librarian positions budgeted for the school year, serving 652 elementary and high schools.
2015:  217 librarian positions / 652 schools
2014:  252 librarian positions / 652 schools
2013:  313 librarian positions / 652 schools
2012:  454 librarian positions / 652 schools


Even my keen lack of knowledge in mathematics and statistics suggests we have an ongoing trend.

The dwindling number of librarians isn't a simple issue. Multiple problems are at play. One is that the state of Illinois requires all school librarians to be a certified teacher as well. Likewise, as a way to handle growing class sizes with budget shortfalls, librarians are often being moved to the classroom instead. This leaves libraries closed to the students because no one left is certified to teach and be a librarian, per that Illinois law. Thus, elementary and high school students are denied access to a wealth of information at the very place they're supposed to be educated.

Further compounding the issue is that some schools, like the Pritzker Elementary School, have parents volunteering to staff the library so it can be opened. That pesky Illinois law is one hurdle in the way for the parents, but the teachers union is yet another.

The teachers union fears allowing an all-volunteer library staff means fewer potential jobs for their employees, as well as a bargaining chip for the city and state looking to slash budgets even more than they already have.

Another head-shaking angle to this situation is that the teachers union argues that 75% of schools with an African-American student body majority were lacking a school librarian, and therefore no school library access was available--yet only 16% of schools with a minority of African-American students faced such a crisis.

Last month, Pritzker Elelmentary--found in Chicago's tony Wicker Park area--found itself over budget, and made the decision to cut their school librarian, too.

This hasn't gone over well with parents, who have taken to writing op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, of all places, demanding Pritzker's school library be opened and staffed with such volunteer parents. (Of course, the parent penning the op-ed was a lawyer. "Chicago issue? Probably best to publish that in a New York newspaper!"--said no one ever, except a lawyer.)

What's Chicago's plan to rectify the situation? Sadly, absolutely nothing. When people are being gunned down every day in your streets, or mentally challenged people are being beat on Facebook Live, strangely enough, there are priorities at play for the people of Chicago.

And, right now, that priority isn't whether school libraries should be open.