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School librarians: a vanishing breed?

This year, Federal Way cut 20 librarian positions. Spokane reduced 10 librarians to half time. Darrington cut two librarians. A school in Marysville eliminated its half-time librarian.

Libraries are open fewer hours, programs minimized, jobs combined. In many cases, part timers with little formal library training are replacing skilled veterans. In Pomeroy, Garfield County, a school employs a combination custodian-librarian — she opens the library after cleaning the locker rooms.

At one school, parents said, enough is enough.

Click through to read how parent activists are pressuring the legislature to make librarians legally recognized as equally valuable contributors in education, to which I say, "Amen and amen."