- Lansing School District Officials want to make it clear that they do not plan on closing any libraries in the district.
- However, there is a proposed plan on the table to shift some librarians into different roles.
- Watch video above to see how people in our neighborhoods feel about it.
Cheryl Brand said she developed a passion for libraries when she worked in the Lansing School District. She wasn't a librarian, but she had friends who were.
“I could talk about years and years, of all the data proving the huge asset of librarians are,” she said.
Brand said she and others aren't fully on board with the Lansing school district's proposal to restructure its library system.
“It needs to be a headline statement that there will not be an absence of libraries in any of our building,” said Lansing School Board President Rachel Willis.
The was all highlighted during Thursday's school board meeting.
While the district said they don't plan to close any libraries, the proposal mentions relocating some Librarians.
Currently, the district has 4, K-8 Librarians, the proposal plans to keep two of those librarians and move the other two into teaching roles. When it comes to maintaining the 17, K-8 libraries in the district, the proposal said that will be left up to teachers, the 2 Liberians and 34 instructional assistants that would be hired.
“Instructional assistants come in and instruct,” said LSD’s Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Sarah Odneal. “They support the librarian's instruction when it comes to literacy skills.”
Odneal said the proposed change deals with providing more literacy access to more students…
“Increase access to all kids because what was happening was kids were not getting access to books because we didn't have more certified librarians,” Odneal said.
While the district thinks this is necessary , people like Brand say moving librarians out of libraries is a big mistake.
“We spent years to build these beautiful libraries up and when there’s not care giver there like a librarian what's the point?” Brand said.
