Thursday, June 26, 2008

A slap in the face

Ok, usually I just post about knitty things, but I am really upset right now. Here is the scenario--
The high school librarian retired this year. The position is posted. Three people (that I know of) are interviewed:
1. A young teacher with 12 years of experience in the elementary grades (7 of which were spent in the library) with a library certification for all grade levels.

2. A young teacher with probably as many years experience as the above teacher with library certification but only been in an elementary classroom.

3. A high school English teacher with no library certification and as far as I know no experience in the library.


On the interview committee, the high school principal, 3 high school English teachers, and the middle school librarian(who was called at the last minute to sit on this committee)

Guess who they decided to hire?
Yeah...the non qualified, one of their own people English teacher.

I'm sorry. Did I waste my time and money going to college for a Masters in Library Science? Do qualifications and education stand for nothing? This is a slap in the face for school librarians everywhere, and especially for the two ladies who spent countless hours and $$$ to get to this point.
I may not be able to send my child to a school that values education so little.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Doesn't surprise me in the least. This spring our School board decided to eliminate all of the certified elem library positions and replace then with half as many library clerks. I ended up changing my major to secondary ed in hoped there will be a job when I am done.