Students on the Rincon/University High School campus have been hard-pressed to ignore the recent budget cuts applied to our school library. Due to the nation-wide recession, TUSD has been curbing every department in an effort to rub two funding nickels together. The hacks made to our library’s budget have been drastic: six of the seven library staff were fired, the newspaper subscriptions went from six to one, the budget for book purchases went from $7 per student to nonexistent, and the researching database for the computers was cut entirely. Besides the monetary setbacks, among the most damaging revisions to our library this year has been the hour reductions, which render our primary place of resource virtually inaccessible. Last year the library was open to students beginning at 7:30 a.m. , continuing through the entire school day, and closing at 5 p.m. This year, the library opens at 8 a.m.., is shut off from lunchtime walk-ins, and closes at 3:15 p.m., a mere half-hour after the final bell. The library is no longer a place for students to study, for clubs or groups to meet, a focused environment stocked with updated resources and reference books, or a base of computer access for students to use as a safety net from the complexities of life. The maintenance of a functioning library is vital not only to uphold the integrity of our school, but to sustain its academic opportunity and provide an equalizing place of refuge for both University and Rincon High School students.
Most student concerns about the recent library cuts lie in the inability to work at lunchtime and after school. Mrs. Sepich, the school librarian since 2000, said restricting lunch hours “wasn’t to exclude the lunch crowd, it was to make it fair for teachers. Fourth period was always such a frustration for them, because they were never able to bring their classes in.” She also said that condensing the before/ after school hours is just the “best of all the bad alternatives.” Due to the legal issues related to the length of a teacher’s work day, if Mrs. Sepich came to school early for the before-school crowd, she would need to leave before the end of sixth period, and if she came late to expand the after school hours, she would curtail library access for all first periods. The library simply doesn’t have the staff to maintain the prior extended hours.
In addition to limiting the accessibility of the library, there have been other detrimental effects caused by the budget diminutions; the cuts have also affected the actual contents within the library. According to Mrs. Sepich, one huge problem is the inability to update the library collection to include recent fiction, periodicals, new science materials, and other current reference works. There is also no budget for technology. “Of our 21 computers, really about seven of them work. They all technically work, but not in any real sense. Seven work in a reasonable time for you to be able to come in and actually produce something,” she said.
What can students do to help? Tax credit donations are greatly appreciated, along with letters to our legislators voicing concern as to the scarcity of TUSD funding. Also, encourage your parents to vote for Proposition 100, to be proposed to voters on May 18th, which would increase the state sales tax by one cent for three years and pitch an estimated 950 million tax-generated dollars towards K-12 education, health and human services and public safety.
