49-0 in the Senate, The House and Governor to go. . .but first taking stock
1:00pm Spokane
I want to post a response to word we got from Tucson. Some of you will remember that it was hearing that Tucson was considering cuts to their library program which was one of the inspirations for this movement’s launch. This comes the day after we won a 49-0 Senate vote calling for emergency bridge funding for our school libraries and a call for school libraries to be considered part of basic education.
This news breaks my heart. I can tell you as a mother of two children in a school with part-time library services that Tucson children will be left behind in many important ways. Their information literacy skills, technology training and stewardship of what makes them life-long learners and readers will be adversely affected.
Don’t give up. If we had believed the political or social conventions that told us we didn’t stand a chance in Olympia we wouldn’t be here to report that 49-0 speaks of a different reality. I believe a fundourfuturearizona could work, the emergency bridge funding that my own district would receive if this is passed into law is exactly the same amount that it would’ve taken for my district to KEEP ITS FULL-TIME ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LIBRARIANS.
Please, consider meeting with parents, educators and business people. Fundourfutureoregon.org has already launched. The ALA and fundourfuturewashington will help. I KNOW we can do this across the country and make this right for our children, for our economies and for our democracy. BUT people have to stand up in order to take a stand. It is a tremendous amount of work but it has been one of the most special things I have ever been involved with and the rewards are great. I flew home from Olympia last night so I could be here to wake up with my young children and walk them to school. My 8 year old daughter had left a homemade newspaper on my (very messy) desk. It read,
“Lisa Layera Brunkan who fought for school libareians won! The score was 49-0. Congratulations. She worked on this for a year. Thank you for saving school libareins! Thank you thank you thank you says school libareans.’
Isabel Brunkan 8 years old.
Susan, Denette and I have said from the beginning that as mothers we felt we couldn’t turn away from the fact that so many children in need would be further marginalized. We also couldn’t turn away from the idea that we knew we could teach our own children something by doing this. The sacrifices have been immense but yesterday Denette was folding laundry, Susan was at a computer in the public library and I was in the Senate gallery and all of us had tears rolling down our cheeks. Huddled in a marble doorway in the capitol I connected with them after the vote, all we could say was ‘We did it! We all did it!! The grassroots movement worked!!’
We were interrupted by the Senate Majority Leader’s assistant who said the Senator wanted to see me, when I did she gave me a hug and said, ‘well, that was something!’
It was a day where democrats stood along side republicans, fiscal conservatives famous for voting down anything that is new money stood and said ‘I hope we can find the money to fund this, we need to.’ We are incredibly grateful to our dream team of sponsors. I wrote at cafepress.com/fundlibraries when we began to sell t-shirts to raise money for our trips to Olympia,
“We are just Moms, not librarians or lobbyists. We’re here to represent 1,000’s that believe this is important which is why we’re looking for a legislative sponsor, a leader who will be a champion and take a stand. Can you help?”
Sometimes all you need to do is ask. I hope anyone wanting to do something like this in their state will do so. We will help as much as we can.
3Moms
February 14th, 2008 at 10:29 am editTucson Unified School District Board Cuts Teacher-LibrariansIn a 3-2 vote last night, the Tucson Unified School District Board voted to force elementary schools with fewer than 350 students to choose between a half-time teacher-librarian or a half-time counselor.See http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/225023 for details.