Vernon Patch Letter: Poet Laureate Lauds School Librarians

VERNON, CT — To the Editor:

My name is Pegi Deitz Shea, and I am a children's book author and Vernon’s Inaugural Poet Laureate. I'm also the mother of two children who received tremendous public education in Vernon and who went on to careers teaching K-8 language arts. My husband is a tenured English professor at UConn, and I'm a recently retired instructor there. None of us would have achieved these careers without the guidance of perceptive and caring school librarians.

Like many of todays parents, both of my parents and my husband's parents worked full-time and could rarely take us to the public library miles away. Our school libraries opened the doors to learning outside of required reading in the classroom. It was my elementary school librarian who guided me to the challenging historical nonfiction and fiction I craved—books that inspired me to write in these genres so that I could inspire readers of all ages. They introduced me to biographies about fearless women explorers, athletes, artists, scientists, and authors who motivated me to make a difference in girls’ lives. This is how a librarian’s influence can ripple out over decades, having positive outcomes for hundreds of thousands of children.

Todays media specialists have more tools than books, but nothing can replace the attention and knowledge librarians give to hungry minds. In elementary schools, their expertise ranges from the needs of five-year-olds to 11-year-olds. Librarians are especially valuable to reluctant readers who will fall behind in all classes if their interests aren’t piqued and their skills aren’t furthered. Librarians are a constant presence as a child ages and changes teachers. They become even more important in middle school, where kids have 8-10 different teachers per year. There, a librarian is uniquely qualified, and has the time to guide an adolescent going through baffling hormonal, social-emotional, and cognitive changes to reliable nonfiction and to empathy-building fiction.

I strongly urge you not to eliminate three librarians from the Vernon Public Schools, in a state race to the bottom in spending per child. The biggest return on Vernon’s investment is a child's love of reading. While teachers must provide children with the skills to read—and often spend their own money to buy extra books for their classrooms—librarians have a breadth and depth of knowledge about media resources and can tailor their guidance to each child. There is no way Vernon schools can provide adequate "library services" without the librarian. If our schools lose librarians, it will be Vernon’s students who lose out.

Pegi Deitz Shea

Vernon