OPINION: Though important, outlook is rocky for school libraries

This editorial was published in the Yakima Herald-Republic.

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School libraries are magical places. Maybe that’s why they’re usually so whispery quiet.

They’re portals that let kids visit faraway lands — real and imagined — and go exploring. They can lose themselves in stories about cowboys or superheroes, find out what it takes to be an astronaut or a computer programmer, or look at pictures of kangaroos or grizzlies. Whatever piques their curiosity.

Wherever they go in a library, kids are taking in information that stimulates their young minds and helps them better understand the world around them.

“When you’re reading, you’re learning. And when you are learning, you’re growing,” Mount Adams Middle School’s assistant principal, Michelle Navarro, said recently as she introduced a class of eighth-graders to the new library her school shares with Harrah Elementary School, both in White Swan.

Given all that, you’d think libraries would be almost sacred — at least as important as sports stadiums or flashy football uniforms.

Not necessarily, though. The sad truth is that Yakima Valley’s school districts are struggling to maintain, or even staff, useful libraries, which puts local kids at a great disadvantage.

That’s why the story of the Mount Adams library is itself probably worth a book — it took several years of community fundraising and hard work to get the library set up and stocked with modern, relevant books.

But even after all that, the school district can’t afford a librarian.

Local schools get most of their money from the state, though they routinely have to ask voters to approve levies to cover basic operating costs. If districts need new buildings, such as a library, they need voter approval for construction bonds.

However, organized groups have pushed hard for years to pass rules limiting taxes, so getting a bond measure through requires a 60% “supermajority” public vote. In the meantime, other organized groups are taking it upon themselves to force libraries to remove books that they don’t like — even if they’re the only ones in town who object to the books.

Running a library can be a thankless proposition.

Now, with the state facing a projected $12 billion budget shortfall, looming worries about the national economy and dumbfounding talk by the incoming Trump administration of doing away with the Department of Education altogether, the outlook is rocky for school libraries.

Increasingly, districts have had to come up with creative strategies, such as partnering with public libraries to share services. Lacking a librarian, Mount Adams’ new library includes an electronic system that allows teachers to help kids check out books.

They’re practical measures, yes, but they aren’t ideal.

Teachers, most of whom are already coping with crowded classrooms and complex layers of other requirements to their own jobs, can’t be expected to know the library as well as a full-time curator. And not every school is situated close enough to a public library for shared services to be practical.

But as we said to begin with, libraries are magical places and imaginations are impossible to quash.

“Reading is a gateway to life,” Mount Adams Superintendent Curt Guaglianone said. “It opens up doors and windows.”

We couldn’t agree more. Let’s just hope creativity and care for future generations keeps finding ways to open up those doors and windows for many years to come.

TNS