River East Transcona targets library technicians for layoffs

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This article was published 07/04/2023 (925 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg school division known for its high standards for library services is laying off technicians and assigning remaining employees to oversee multiple collections in order to balance its budget.

River East Transcona School Division, in which roughly 17,000 students are registered, notified employees about “restructuring” plans for kindergarten-to-Grade 12 libraries last week.

Affected library technicians — whose current duties include undertaking clerical work, cataloging materials and helping students sign out books — have been given the option to retire, resign or apply for a modified position.

There are currently 42 positions in charge of managing daily operations in book and media centres across RETSD — or 34 full-time equivalent library technicians, given some employees have multiple part-time jobs.

Starting in 2023-24, those figures will be 29 and 25.25, respectively.

“To minimize layoffs, jobs have been combined wherever possible to maintain a (full-time position),” states an excerpt from an internal briefing dated April 4.

“We are committed to library programming and literacy development. All our schools, apart from one, are staffed with a teacher-librarian and library technicians; the 41 schools will retain both of those positions for the next school year,” superintendent Sandra Herbst said in an email.

“Unfortunately, efficiencies had to be found in the 2023-24 budget.”

Teacher-librarians, roles held by certified teachers who curate materials to support classroom colleagues with curriculum delivery and presentations on topics like media literacy, will not be impacted.

The Manitoba School Library Association’s stance is all K-12 communities benefit from well-staffed libraries and adequate personnel is required to ensure equity in schools across the province.

Association president Sandy Welbergen called it “disappointing” RETSD — a leader in library services and one of few urban divisions that hires teacher-librarians — has resorted to such measures.

Welbergen said cutbacks ultimately affect children, their learning and their rights to both read and have access to information, because schools without full-time library technicians are usually forced to close at some points during the week.

“I wish libraries weren’t considered expendable,” she added.

RETSD guidelines state all local libraries are to be open “all day, every day” and facilities are expected to have a full-time library technician. Schools with 300 or fewer students are the only exceptions; in those cases, a half-time technician is acceptable, per a 2019 policy.

The latest plan indicates a dozen schools are slated to have a quarter-time technician next year.

The local leader of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents dozens of RETSD technicians via CUPE 3873, is urging the employer to rethink its cuts and “recognize the value of library workers in childhood development.”

“This isn’t historic funding for K-12, these are historic job cuts, and historic attacks on our children’s literacy programming,” Gina McKay, president of CUPE Manitoba, said in a statement.

Manitoba’s education minister has repeatedly touted the 2023-24 funding announcement — a 6.1 per cent increase overall, the largest of its kind in at least 25 years — as “astronomical.”

Earlier in the school year, documents obtained by the Free Press revealed significant cutbacks to K-12 libraries across the Winnipeg School Division over the last decade.

There were five times the current number of librarians employed in the central division in 2012-13.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie