The 100th day of school came and went. It's all downhill from here! Wait, that's the same thing they told me when I turned 40. Although, I prefer to think of it as picking up speed.
When we are not worried about where we fall with the calendar, we are hard at work. Not only those of you in the field, but also the GLMA Board of Directors too.
At JLH Consulting, newlywed Michelle Holcombe Crider and Lasa Joiner have been drafting A Call to Action for the Georgia legislature regarding HB 157 - Teacher Retirement/Return to Work Bill proposed by Representative Brooks Coleman (R - Duluth) which excludes library media specialists from being able to return to teaching from retirement while still enjoying full benefits. This retirement privilege is provided for classroom teachers, principals and superintendents. Representative Coleman conveniently forgets that a school's media center is the largest classroom in the building. I am sorry to report that Representative Coleman called me personally in response to my message left with his secretary to say that it was "too late" to amend the bill and that it had already passed the House and was in the Senate. He made it sound so cut and dried that cuts in the budget had to be made somewhere and once again "we" were convenient. Of course, he reminded me that media specialist can still take advantage of the 49% retirement employment. Some consolation.
Another issue facing Georgia's library media specialists is HB 1209 - Investing in Educational Excellence (IE2): School System Flexibility and Accountability Legislation proposed by Brooks Coleman - (R) Duluth; Rich Golick - (R) Smyrna; Vance Smith - (R) Pine Mountain; Jim Cole - (R) Forsyth; Howard Maxwell - (R) Dallas; Bill Hembree - (R) Winston. This House Bill is troubling because it can ultimately affect class size, expenditure controls and category allotments, even certification and salary requirements. Can you see the possible effects on your media budget and collection? It is GLMA's position that this bill is unacceptable in its present form; there needs to be more explicit language regarding just how "flexible" school systems can be with expenditure controls. We encourage you to call the sponsors listed above and state your concern.
On February 14, I spoke at Library Legislative Day about the Georgia's need to restore our full funding that was cut in half during the 2003 austerity cuts. While we acknowledge the partial restoration of funds, media centers need the full funding ($19.54) back due to the rising costs of books and database subscriptions. GLMA has drafted rationale with specific examples of hardship and abuse of expenditures to Chairman Jan Jones (House Appropriations Education Subcommittee). So, contact your legislators about media budgets, funding and allocation controls.
As you can see, the GLMA Executive Committee, GLMA lobbyists and especially Legislative Advocacy Chair, Betsy Razza, are proactively looking out for all Georgia media specialists. Kudos!