Advocating Excellence. Facilitating Change. Developing Leaders.

GLMA is the largest professional organization serving school library media professionals in Georgia. Its members are dedicated to the advancement and empowerment of school library media specialists and to quality education in Georgia’s schools. GLMA, Inc. is the state affiliate to the American Association of School Libraries (AASL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). GLMA is also an affiliate of ISTE, International Society for Technology in Education.

ALERT!!!  Your school library media program may be in jeopardy!

State Education Finance Study Commission, created in the 2011 Georgia legislative session, is reviewing education funding practices in Georgia and will make recommendations on funding revisions to be reviewed and acted upon by the 2013 Georgia General Assembly. In the 2012 session, they recommended additional funding for school nurses and restitution (in a graduated plan) of professional development funding.

Library media centers could be dramatically affected by this commission.  At this point, Subcommittee Four recommendations include repealing sections of Title 20 involving media center costs (the requirement that funds be used for media centers, which is currently waived through June, 2015) and staffing requirements:

Statutory Provisions and Recommendations

O.C.G.A. § 20-2-167 Funding for direct instruction, media center and staff development

Recommendation: Repeal sections (a)(1), (a)(2), and (a)(3) to the extent they restrict use of funding, which will allow local school systems flexibility with direct instructional costs, media center costs, and staff development costs.

O.C.G.A. § 20-2-184 Program weights for media specialist

Recommendation: Revise to allow local school systems to determine how funding will be used for staffing and media center costs.

(These are found on slides 8 and 12 of this presentation.)

If your media center has already been impacted by staffing and/or funding cuts, PLEASE e-mail your story to us and we will share with committee members and staff.  All information is shared only with identification relating to the level of school (e.g., elementary) and geographic location (e.g., North Georgia or metro Atlanta).  It would also be very helpful if you could contact your local legislators (who represent you personally AND your school if those differ) with your stories, using the advocacy suggestions linked from this page.  If that is beyond your comfort level, PLEASE at least share your stories with our Advocacy group.  You may e-mail the GLMA Advocacy chair at nantbrown@hotmail.com.  Thank you!