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Public comment defends district librarians as board returns library-selection policy to committee
Summary
A recent River Falls High School graduate urged the board to protect school libraries and praised library staff. The Educational Program Committee reported it will revisit proposed revisions to library-materials and instructional-materials policies for further discussion before a first reading at the full board.
A student and former River Falls High School employee urged the River Falls School District Board of Education to support school libraries and library staff as the board's Educational Program Committee decided to send draft library-materials policies back to committee for more discussion.
"Libraries mean a great deal to me," Lily Erisman said during public comment, identifying herself as a recent River Falls High School graduate who worked this year as a paraeducator at Greenwood Elementary. She praised the district's librarians and said the library is where she spends "an hour minimum" each day connecting students to books and literacy.
Erisman named Erin de Debudget as a role model and defended the library's materials-selection practices, saying support staff and the library specialist "take meticulous care in ensuring that all books that come in are safe, educational, and appropriate for our students."
At the committee level, Ellen (last name not specified), chair of the Educational Program Committee, summarized committee discussion on proposed updates to three district policies: 361.2 (selection of library media materials), the procedure rule for 361.2, and 361.1 (criteria/guidelines for instructional materials). The committee concluded there was sufficient interest and questions to warrant more review and implementation discussion before advancing the drafts to a first reading at the full board.
"It's one thing to have a policy, it's another thing to make sure that all the staff understand how we're doing it and implementing it," Ellen said, explaining the committee wants to ensure administrators, library media specialists and families understand how any new policy would work in practice.
Committee members asked for more detail on selection and curation practices, parent engagement strategies and how the policies would be implemented by library staff. Ellen said staff from the library-media team would be invited to the next committee meeting so members can see procedures in practice before the policies move forward.
The committee set a plan to continue discussion at the next committee meeting rather than bring the drafts directly to the full board for action.
