The signers of this petition are asking the D41 Board of Education and the D41 Administration to revisit their organization plans for the technology/media areas, and find a way to provide the appropriate technology support to advance technology goals (as referred to in Goal 3 of the districtâs long-range plan) without eliminating the schoolsâ Library Aide and Tech Aide positions.
On February 27, 2012, the D41 Board of Education approved the D41 Administrationâs proposal to eliminate the schoolsâ Library Aide and Tech Aide positions and combine them into a Media Aide position, and also hire three network specialists, one for Hadley and the other two on a shared basis for the four elementary schools. The Library Aide and Tech Aide are important, student-facing resources in the schools, and services to students will be lost or compromised if these positions are eliminated and combined into one.
The Library Aide is a virtually 100% student-facing position during the school day. The many responsibilities of the position include: Checking in/out thousands of books per month, shelving books, enforcing circulation rules, cataloguing new books, recommending books to students, locating books for students and teachers, placing holds, gathering materials for teachers, and many other day-to-day administrative duties. These duties cannot be covered by the school librarians, who are responsible for teaching curriculum to students just like the other âspecialsâ departments. These duties also cannot adequately be serviced by a part-time Media Aide (who is also responsible for troubleshooting technology problems) without cutting services to students and teachers and risking substantial losses of the librariesâ book collections. It can be argued that the school libraries are already understaffed, since many of the school libraries rely on significant parent volunteer hours.
The Tech Aide position is currently each schoolâs first line of troubleshooting for technology problems. The Tech Aides can quickly respond and resolve problems with the network, Smartboards, laptops, iPads, netbooks, printers, and software. The quick response time to resolve problems is critical, especially as teacher build lessons around technology, and the need for rapid response troubleshooting will only increase as the district rightly increases its investments in laptops, iPads, netbooks and Smartboards. As the studentsâ school days are tightly planned in lesson blocks, entire lessons can be missed if a teacher experiences a problem with hardware or the network and it cannot be resolved quickly, within minutes. This may make teachers reluctant to plan lessons incorporating technology. In the current organization, the full-time Tech Aide trouble-shoots technology problems quickly, with additional support from Central Services on a tech ticket basis. In the proposed organization, there will be far less support on an immediate basis since the new Media Aide position will also be attempting to cover library duties. There will be additional tech support from the network specialist, but this position is shared in the elementary schools so there may be a wait of several hours. Longer wait times waste valuable instructional time and disincent the teachers to incorporate technology into lesson plans.
The Administrationâs recommendation was intended to provide more resources to resolving tech tickets for more complicated technology problems, We appreciate and applaud the districtâs investment in technology for the studentsâ benefit. These technology investments come with support costs which must be managed. However, these investments do not reduce the responsibilities or importance of the Library Aide, and increase the need for a dedicated technology troubleshooting resource like the Tech Aide. These Aide positions are valuable and cost-effective solution providers within the schools, and their positions should remain as the Administration seeks a different plan to accomplish its important technology goals.