CTU pushes for libraries and librarians in every CPS school

The Chicago Teachers Union is pushing for librarians in every Chicago Public School, saying at a news conference Tuesday that the decision to cut them is hurting students.

Students and their reading levels are still recovering from pandemic-induced school closures and online learning, CTU members say, and a rise of public misinformation begs for better information literacy among children.

"In order to support libraries, they must be funded," Tara Donnelly, a librarian at Foreman College and Career Academy, said at a news conference Tuesday. "If they are not funded, it is the same outcome as the book banning extremists, it is closing libraries and preventing access."

The number of librarians has sharply declined since 2012, when the district had several hundred librarians, Donnelly said.

CPS said it now employs 107 librarians, for more than 500 district-run, non-charter schools.

CTU members and supporters handed out books to giddy children heading into George W. Tilton Elementary School in West Garfield Park, which doesn't have a library.

"You can look behind us, there are children running to get books," CTU Secretary Christel Williams Hayes said. "They are excited that they are being gifted books, not toys, not video games, but books — something that they wish they had in their building."

The drive for more librarians partly stems from the 2013 decision to close 50 schools in the largest mass school closure in the country, CTU Financial Secretary Maria Moreno said. Now, CTU says students are still struggling and the promised resources were never delivered to schools, including librarians.

"At that time we were promised so many things that these closings would bring, such as efficiency, resources," Moreno said. "They gave us the world, they said. But here we are 11 years later and we are still fighting for these resources that our students deserve and need."

Many schools without libraries are on the city's South and West Sides. Majority Black schools have historically suffered the impacts of low enrollment and subsequently low funding, and librarians have been among the first positions cut in the past, the Sun-Times reported in 2022.

An analysis by the Sun-Times and a Chicago Teachers Union researcher at the time found that librarians were present at only 10% of schools where Black students are the largest percentage of the student body. Comparatively, 25% of schools had librarians where white kids are the majority and 21% where Hispanic students are the highest racial group, the study found.

"Just don't think that because we're on the West Side that we don't want what everyone else has," said LaVita Buckner, a teacher at Tilton and a CTU delegate. "We want a library, and we want a librarian. Not only do we want it, but we need it."

The district pushed back against some union claims, touting its literacy growth ranked first compared with 40 other urban districts, according to research from Harvard and Stanford universities studying the educational impact of the pandemic. The district has hired staff in other areas, and it now has more licensed educators with students in the district than ever before, district spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus said in a statement.

"The district values the important role of a school librarian as evident by the recently revamped budget model which prioritizes and provides staff positions for every school, including providing a position that can be filled by a librarian if a school team deems it best suits their needs," the statement read.

The demand for more librarians is also connected to the continuing contract negotiations between the union and the district, according to H Kapp-Klote, a CTU spokesperson.

"We want all the same things," Kapp-Klote said. "We're all on the same page, but when it comes to funding it and making it happen, we're not getting much from CPS."

During an 11-day CTU strike in 2019, the union demanded the district hire a librarian for every school, but the two sides didn't reach an agreement on that issue.

The push for more school resources is also intertwined with Chicago's first school board election on Nov. 5. Races across the city are largely focused on how to handle the projected $500 million budget deficit in upcoming years. But while librarians would add a cost, continuing to dwindle the number of them would come at a different price, advocates say.

"There's a lot of talk in Chicago about a budget deficit, but there should be equal talk about the knowledge deficit, about the skill deficit, about the empathy deficit and about the imagination deficit that results from closing libraries," Donnelly said.