School Board Forced Into Cutting School Librarians

Westfield students will be seeing their librarians less this year under plans implemented as a result of the spring's budget cuts.

The Board of Education approved plans Tuesday evening to move five of the district's librarians around between the elementary and intermediate schools due to the budget cuts made. During the spring's cuts, the BOE reduced the school system's librarian count by three. The cuts were made after Gov. Chris Christie slashed state aid to Westfield by $4.22 million or 90.4-percent.

"Each librarian is now working in at least two schools, one is in three schools," Schools Superintendent Margaret Dolan said. "It is a shift in all of our librarians."

The plan will have Moira Abraham going from being the fulltime librarian at Roosevelt to spending 2/5 of her time at Roosevelt and 3/5 of her time at Edison. Debra Stern will move from Franklin fulltime to spending 3/5 of her time at Franklin and 2/5 of her time at Roosevelt. Daria Bonavita is leaving Jefferson fulltime to spend 3/5 of her time at Jefferson and 2/5 of her time at Franklin. Kathleen Cook will move from fulltime at McKinley to 3/5 at McKinley and 2/5 at Tamaques. Dianne Smith is leaving Wilson fulltime to spending 7/10 of her time at Wilson, 2/10 of her time at Tamaques and 1/10 of her time at Edison.

Dolan said that all school libraries will remain open during all school hours but will not always be staffed by a librarian. She said that the librarians will continue to conduct all library lessons and other curriculum related programs during their times in the schools, but other extra programs designed for library education will likely be cut. She said that teachers will be able to supervise the library when they bring their classes to a librarian free library.

Dolan said the schedules are being designed in a way to allow librarians to spend entire days in one library as much as possible to cut down on travel time between schools during the day.

The program is similar to the cuts that have been implemented in music and arts programs as a result of the Christie cuts.