It has come to our attention that some elementary Teacher-Librarians have been assigned to teach more than K – 4/5 prep, as part of the school’s Library Entitlement. This should not be happening. Elementary Teacher-Librarian entitlement is based on the school’s projected enrolment from the previous spring, at a 1:500 ratio. Out of that library entitlement, the TL teaches 40 minutes of prep for each K – 4/5 division at the school, schedules in their own prep time and Library Admin time, and the rest of their schedule is for collaboration time, which may include scheduled intermediate book exchange times.
Generally, the only way that TLs should be teaching any prep above K – 4/5 is if the school “purchases” library service with their intermediate prep allotment, thereby increasing the percentage that a part-time TL is at the school.
Sometimes an administrator will assign some intermediate prep to a TL because they can’t see any other way of providing prep to intermediate teachers, particularly if, for example, classroom teachers teach their own French. This, however, is a school-based staffing error which leads to schools losing out on library collaboration time and erodes library service district-wide. If this is happening at your school, please contact Christie Weigel at services@surreyteachers.org immediately.
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