Some school board members, residents say Manville schools need more books.
By: Krzysztof Scibiorski
The Manville School District has shifted its focus toward "media technology" at the cost of traditional books and library resources, an approach that has raised concern among some school board members and parents.
Schools Superintendent Francis X. Heelan admitted that in recent years the district has "moved money into technology" while reducing spending on books and libraries. He conceded that the district has only one librarian/media specialist, at Weston school, and a library clerk at the high school. The fact that "there has not been much demand for books from principals has affected the fairly low levels of funding as well," Dr. Heelan said.
However, he stressed that the schools, "especially ABIS, have great technology resources that are meant to compensate for this."
Patricia Booth, the technology supervisor at both Alexander Batcho Intermediate School and Roosevelt School, said the computer lab (former library) in ABIS has between 33 and 35 machines, with others scattered around the classrooms.
Dr. Heelan said that "books have been moved to individual classrooms," as opposed to traditional libraries, but that the district has not gotten rid of any of them. He also expressed the hope that "parents would take the children to libraries," where printed resources are available.
Dr. Heelan said that "less affluent districts, such as Manville, will continue to have to make hard choices over the allocation of limited resources in the coming years."
He also noted that an October 1997 referendum question that would have funded an expanded library/media center at the high school was defeated by a "sound, 60/40, majority of the voters."
During the Aug. 21 Board of Education meeting, board members Jeanne Golden and Mary Lou Cebula questioned the redesignation of more than $25,000 in last year’s school budget that had been earmarked for a second librarian’s salary. During the board meeting, Mrs. Golden also noted that the expenses covered by these funds included coaches’ salaries, legal services ($12,500) and custodians’ salaries.
Anne Marie Kralovich, a local resident and former board member, expressed her belief that "computers alone will not constitute an educated man," and stressed the need for children to read.
In a later interview, Mrs. Golden asserted that with a school budget the size of Manville’s, "there’s not one reason in the world why (Manville) should not have a library in every school." She labeled last week’s discovery of former ABIS library books seemingly bound for the garbage as a "mortal sin" and laid doubt to Dr. Heelan’s assertions of "no books being thrown away."
Mrs. Golden said the district should not be surprised that the high school library proposal, which she described as a "big palazzo," was defeated in 1997 when the district "does not do its homework and does not look after the shop."
Weston school librarian Elaine Walters said the library budgets have been "depreciating steadily over the years" to the point where no funds were allocated for books at the Roosevelt school this year and only $200 was budgeted for books at ABIS.
In a separate interview, Dr. Cebula, a principal in the Warren Township School District, said that "every school still needs a media specialist." She acknowledged that librarians are hard to find but said the district needs to "look again for qualified librarians," making the same effort that it did in finding high school math teachers. Dr. Cebula said "children should be able to choose between books and electronic media."