Photo by JuliaC2006. Obtained through Flickr Creative Commons.
Understanding the Issues
This page is a resource for learning more about school libraries and school libraries staff to build your advocacy message.
Underestanding Services Provided by Credential and Classified libary Staff
One of the first steps in advocay is educating co-workers, administrators, parents, and communities about the unique and essential services provided by credentialed teacher librarians and qualified classifed library staff.
This chart from the CTC provides a good overview of services provided. The chart also addressed the Special Class Authorization (SCA), which can only be obtained by those who have a Teacher Librarian Credential. The SCA permits teacher librarians to teach departmentalized classes, which means a class for which they hold the roster that meets as a scheduled class, in the areas of informtion literacy, media literacy, and digital literacy. This is not available to any other credential and does not mean that without it, teacher librarians are not full teachers who teach collaboratively with teachers in other departments.
California Education Code References:
Section 18100. The governing board of each school district shall provide school library services for the pupils and teachers of the district by establishing and maintaining school libraries or by contractual arrangements with another public agency.Library Services MUST (shall means that it is required) provide library services. Up until 2010, the state of California did not have a definition of library services. The model school library standards spell out what school library services mean. The focus is on teaching the content of the MSLS to every grade level.
Section 18120. The governing board of a school district maintaining its own library or libraries may appoint a librarian or librarians to staff the libraries provided they qualify as librarians pursuant to Section 44868.
Section 44868. No person shall be employed as a library media teacher in any elementary or secondary school, unless he or she holds a valid credential of proper grade authorizing service as a library media teacher or a valid teaching credential issued by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing if he or she has completed the specialized area of librarianship.
Section 51871.5 The guidelines and criteria shall include a component to educate pupils and teachers on the appropriate and ethical use of information technology in the classroom, Internet safety, the manner in which to avoid committing plagiarism, the concept, purpose, and significance of copyright so that pupils are equipped with the skills necessary to distinguish lawful from unlawful online downloading and the implications of illegal peer-to-peer network file sharing.