Rather than reopen school libraries that were closed for the pandemic, Washington Local Schools plans to leave them closed and convert the space to STEM classrooms, families in the district were told this week.
District Superintendent Kadee Anstadt said in a districtwide email on Thursday that the district needs the space for science, technology, engineering, and math programming.
She said Friday that nine library media aides who were laid off last year are not being called back, and two were hired in other jobs.
“With limited space at our elementary buildings, we have decided to convert our current elementary library spaces into STEM classrooms. We are confident we can continue to support our students in their reading journeys as we have greatly expanded the book collections in each classroom,” Ms. Anstadt said.
She said the district is working to secure a Toledo Lucas County Public Library card for each Washington Local student, and will share details about how the library cards work in the fall.
The superintendent said during the past year, “Washington Local has had to make decisions that we could not have previously imagined. Closing schools and then reopening with strict safety guidance, pivoting to online learning, and moving between remote and hybrid scenarios has given us a lifetime worth of on-the-job training.”
In place of central school libraries, the district aims to enhance its classroom library collections.
“As we have evaluated what programming needs to change, one clear experience that has been missing at the elementary level is access to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) time and resources,” the email says,
Ms. Anstadt said STEM is a time in the day for “making, teamwork, problem solving, creating, and critical thinking,” and STEM will be added to pupils’ weekly schedule just like art, music, and physical education.
She said the labs will be stocked with up-to-date technology including Legos, robots, coding activities, building supplies, 3D printers, and more.
Over the last few months, a group of teachers has been working with Bowling Green State University and the NWO STEM Team and also has been hearing from STEM teachers around the region who have been teaching STEM for several years, the superintendent said.
The decisions already made apply to the eight elementary schools. Ms. Anstadt said the board is in negotiations with the Ohio Association of Public School Employees over the positions in the libraries in the two junior high schools and the high school. There are no plans to reopen them as libraries, she said.
Washington Local’s move away from school libraries is not representative of all area districts. A spot check with two other Toledo-area districts found no plans to phase out their libraries.
In Toledo Public Schools, each high school is staffed with a full-time librarian, and they are now open. The elementary libraries are staffed by a part-time librarian, each of whom rotates among up to five schools. Those libraries are not open and will remain closed for the remainder of the school year, though students will have access to materials, a school district spokesman said.
Springfield School District has one elementary media specialist who travels to all four schools and a media specialist who is shared by the high school and middle school, which are on the same campus. The materials are currently being made available to students.
First Published April 16, 2021, 6:20 p.m.
