In the wake of the decision, the Pflugerville Educators Association has been rallying support to retain full-time librarians at all district campuses through a petition that has garnered more than 900 signatures as of June 16.
"PfISD has always offered an excellent school library program that includes a full-time certified librarian at every school," a message from the PFEA petition states. "However, PfISD currently plans to not have librarians at two schools next year as a pilot program. Certified librarians are essential teachers. Librarians teach reading, research skills, technology and more."
The PFEA also held a protest outside the PfISD Administration Building, located at 1401 W. Pecan St., Pflugerville, before the district's June 16 board of trustees meeting.
PfISD Chief Communications Officer Tamra Spence said June 15 that officials are not cutting librarians from the district.
"Two librarians have left their librarian position within the district, and we are piloting hiring library aides only for those two campuses," Spence said via email. "We’re facing a [$13] million deficit budget this year, and we are looking at a variety of measures that we can take to offset that, including [going] out for a [voter approval tax rate election] again in November to increase revenue, and this pilot is one small measure that we are implementing to explore the impact."
PFEA President Elect Marsha Munoz said during the June 16 protest that the two campuses affected—Pflugerville Elementary School and Windermere Elementary School—are Title I schools, meaning they have a higher percentage of students below the poverty level. She said the group's goal is to convince the board to fill the two vacated positions with certified librarians in time for the 2022-23 school year.
"There is research that shows scores actually rise when there are certified librarians, and in Pflugerville [ISD], we've always had equitable ... libraries in every school," Munoz said.
Educational assistants are not equivalent to trained librarians, Munoz said. She said that trained librarians create entire supplemental education programs for their campuses that are proven to improve student outcomes.
Additionally, the budget reduction brought about by the pilot program would be negligible compared with the multimillion-dollar deficit the district is facing, she said.
"Filling those two positions with an [educational aide] will unfortunately have greater negative consequences [on] student success," Munoz said. "Yes, they'll save a little bit of money, but at what cost?"
Several members and supporters of PFEA spoke out against the pilot program—which is slated to run through the 2022-23 school year—during the June 16 board meeting.
Laura Owen, a PfISD librarian at Pflugerville High School, addressed the board and spoke about how beneficial librarians are to education.
"Reading and writing scores tend to be higher for all students who have librarians," Owen said, quoting from an article citing several studies about how librarians help students learn.
During public comment at the June 16 meeting, there was no support for the pilot program out of the numerous people who addressed the board. Instead, sentiment unanimously supported the position that certified librarians are an extremely valuable asset within an educational system, and they should be staffed at every PfISD campus.
Regarding any adjustment or movement away from the pilot program in light of the substantial opposition, Spence said the board cannot act on anything that is not on an official board of trustees agenda, and the item was not on the June agenda.
Following public comment during a financial update from district Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Land, Superintendent Doug Killian highlighted the $13 million budget shortfall the district is facing, indirectly pointing to the need to make budget cuts wherever possible.
Killian said a failed tax ratification election in November added to the district's budget deficits by removing an estimated $8 million in additional property tax revenue.
Buttressing his point, Killian said drops in attendance due to the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with rapidly rising property values throughout the district are resulting in the state of Texas withholding more money from PfISD, further exacerbating the money crunch.
To add context to Killian's message about the district's funding options, Trustee Cindy Gee said during the June 16 meeting the library aide pilot program would save the district less than $100,000. Despite that relatively low figure within a roughly $13 million deficit, Gee said it is sad that it is a cut the board must nevertheless make at this time.
"[The state of Texas is] tired of hearing from us," Killian said. "They think we whine all the time. But like at this board meeting here, we hate what we're doing, and there is money at the state level that can fix this. They need to hear your voices, too."
