photo by: Dylan Lysen

Lawrence High School's library is pictured in this file photo.

After going into the Lawrence school board meeting on Monday facing the loss of more than a dozen library positions and significant materials funding, proponents for the district’s libraries are breathing a sigh of relief.

As part of its meeting Monday, the Lawrence school board voted to reduce the library cuts proposed by district administration by more than half, saving multiple librarian and librarian assistant positions and maintaining funding for library resources. Instead of accepting a proposal from district administrators, the board approved a variation of a proposal created by district librarians.

Sunset Hill Elementary librarian Fallon Farokhi was one of several district librarians who appealed to the school board during the meeting. She said all the district librarians spent hours coming up with the proposal, and on Tuesday she was relieved to feel that the board had heard out their concerns.

“I could exhale and be able to breathe,” Farokhi said. “I felt like I had been just clenching every muscle in my body for the last three months. And so it was a relief that we were finally heard, we were finally invited to the table.”

District administration’s initial proposal called for an approximately 40% cut to library funding for a reduction of about $608,000. A second proposal, created with input from librarians, called for an approximately 34% cut for a reduction of about $509,500. The board ultimately voted to support a variation of a third proposal that was submitted directly to the board by district librarians. The librarians’ proposal calls for an approximately 17% cut to spending for a reduction of about $264,320.

However, the board is still aiming for a total of about $6.4 million in cuts, and now plans to come up with the difference in savings from elsewhere in its budget. The board directed administration to come up with the difference through a combination of cuts to learning coaches and administration. The board did not specify a breakdown for how the cuts should be divided among those two areas, but the board will have to approve the proposal as part of a future meeting.

Currently, there are 18 librarians and about 14 library assistants to serve the district’s 20 schools, which include an early childhood center, 13 elementary schools, four middle schools and two high schools. Early in the district’s budget discussions, proposals included as much as a 75% cut to school library funding, which Farokhi said would have left the district with only six librarians.

“(The proposal) was just unacceptable,” Farokhi said. “Six librarians for an entire district this size is unfathomable.”

The more recent proposal from district administration presented Monday would have cut 12.27 positions in total, consisting of 4.5 librarian positions and 7.77 library assistant positions. The second proposal would have cut 10.52 positions total — 4.5 librarian positions and 6.02 library assistant positions. In addition to staff cuts, both of those proposals would also have cut $100,000 in library resources and $24,000 for substitutes.

The librarians’ proposal calls for cutting only 6.77 positions total — two librarian positions and 4.77 library assistant positions. It calls for a $50,000 cut in library resources and $24,000 for substitutes. The variation of that proposal that the board agreed to did not cut any library resources.

Farokhi said that librarians had been reaching out to board members for months, and many were worried that the budget reductions being proposed were not made with a full understanding of the duties of librarians and the roles they play in schools. On Monday, librarians and parents spoke to the important skills librarians teach students, including media literacy, research skills and technology assistance.

When it was her turn to address the board, Farokhi brought a bag with her that was filled with letters and signs of support from her students. She said that when classes came into the library on Tuesday, students cheered, and she was grateful for all the support from students and other community members, including the community group Save Our Schools 497.

Save Our Schools also advocated for less severe cuts to the district’s library program, and instead called for deeper cuts to district administration. So far, the board has approved $400,000 in cuts to district administration, which does not include a proposed salary reduction for some of the highest earners. On Tuesday, Save Our Schools founder Alicia Erickson said the group was thankful for the board’s decision.

“The fact that the board took time to seriously consider and eventually adopt the proposal created by the librarians is cause for hope,” Erickson said in an email to the Journal-World. “This is a great example of how involving stakeholders in the process improves transparency, increases involvement, gives agency to affected groups, and yields positive outcomes.”

However, Erickson said there are mixed feelings. She said the group remains deeply concerned that the board has again placed the responsibility of making deeper cuts to central administration in the hands of administrators. She said administrators have repeatedly demonstrated that they are unwilling to share the level of cuts being proposed for other areas, and the group’s biggest concern now is that the district will place the financial burden on learning coaches.

Erickson said that “deep cuts to those positions would cause great harm to students and staff.”

The district is required by state law to approve a balanced budget, and the district estimated the board had to make up to $4.27 million worth of cuts to meet that requirement. That portion of the district’s budget reductions was due mainly to declining enrollment. The board is looking to approve additional cuts to provide raises to district staff.