Many studies have shown that schools with full time librarians yield students with significantly higher reading scores and that students' grades are negatively affected when they do not have access to fully operational school libraries and the expertise provided by qualified school librarians (http://www.lrs.org/data-tools/school-libraries/impact-studies/). Even with public libraries available, the only chance many students will have to experience a library is at their school.

Unfortunately, our Cheyenne Mountain School District 12 Board of Education members are considering a technology plan that will eliminate every elementary school library media specialist in our entire district! As an example, the media specialist at Skyway Elementary, Pam Herr, is a certified teacher with Masters Degrees in both Technology and Library Science with almost 25 years' experience helping countless children. She is slated to lose her position. In exchange for a licensed and certified full-time media specialist, each school would have to share a half-time technology resource person with another elementary school and would staff the school library with a non-certified half-time library clerk. Neither of these new positions requires a teaching certificate. You can read about the technology plan here: http://www.cmsd12.org/. Technology and librarians need not be mutually exclusive.

In addition to signing this petition opposing the part of the technology plan that will eliminate our elementary school librarians, I urge you to contact the D12 Board members via email or letter to protest this plan (http://www.cmsd12.org/boe). You may also want to attend the school board meeting on Monday, March 17th at 6:30pm in the Community Room of the administration building at 1775 La Clede Street. Thank you for signing and please spread the word to every taxpayer you know within School District 12.