South Burlington Vt Library Art Proposal Burlington Free Press
The Vermont Schoolhouse Library Association is objecting to part of Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger's proposal to build the city'south new high schoolhouse on the downtown Gateway Block.
The association takes effect with part of Weinberger'due south recommendation that the city's Fletcher Free Library could integrate with Burlington High School if the new schoolhouse is built on the cake next to the customs library and Memorial Auditorium. That plan would mean the school wouldn't have to build its own library, the mayor has suggested.
The association sent a letter of the alphabet to the Burlington Schoolhouse District and school board members, making it clear that it "strongly rejects" Weinberger's proposal. Conjoining the public library with the new high school would take abroad resources from both students and residents, the association argued.
"While the Fletcher Free Library is a dynamic space that serves as a fundamental community resources, public and school libraries serve very unlike purposes," the letter stated.
The Burlington School District is in the midst of identifying where to build its new high school. The onetime building was shut downwardly last fall when cancer-causing PCB chemicals were constitute throughout the grounds. Two areas are in the running: an area effectually 52 Found Route, where the former high school is located, that includes two site possibilities, or the Gateway Block, an area where the mayor has long favored development.
The commune has hired White + Burke Real Estate to appraise both sites and deliver details to the lath next month. The board is expected to choose a final site by November.
The library association'due south letter also alleges that the Burlington High School library has been underfunded compared with nearby schools' libraries.
"As a district that has been negatively and disproportionately impacted by Vermont's inequitable and racist schoolhouse funding formula, information technology is non in Burlington'south best involvement to deprive teenage students of their own school library," the letter stated.
The argument refers to research that plant the state'due south didactics funding formulas to exist outdated and caitiff, specifically for districts such as Burlington that have high levels of English linguistic communication learners and depression-income students who need significant support.
Russ Elek, a spokesperson for the Burlington School District, told VTDigger in an email Monday that the district appreciates the considerable feedback it has received nigh the placement of the new high school, including from the state library clan.
"We are considering all of this feedback seriously and will exercise the same with VSLA'due south recommendation," Elek wrote. "In the meantime, BSD remains committed to providing our students with thriving school libraries that encourage literacy and provide condom spaces for all."
In a statement to VTDigger Monday, Weinberger said he wished country library association leaders had contacted his office direct to talk over their concerns. He said he discussed the possibility of conjoining the Fletcher Costless Library with its director, Mary Danko, and they agreed to bring the thought to the district.
"We are in an era in which a growing number of cities are innovating, designing, and building new schools that serve both students and the community around them," Weinberger said.
"As the city and its taxpayers confront limited borrowing capacity, and while both the urban center and the school district accept significant upper-case letter needs, we feel it is our responsibility to consider whether such an innovative and collaborative approach is possible," he added.
Peter Langella, a former president of the school library association and its current legislative concerns representative, told VTDigger on Monday that the clan published its letter because some thought the mayor had proposed this idea without consulting enough librarians.
"We heard from people on the footing in school libraries and public libraries that no one had been consulted," he said. The statement aimed to give "people who are directly involved a voice at the table," Langella said.
Langella said the school library association has establish that nearby schools in Essex, Due south Burlington and his ain Champlain Valley Matrimony High School, where he works as a librarian, have more back up staff in their libraries than Burlington does. On summit of the funding pressures Burlington experiences relative to its student population, splitting an essential resource like a public library between students and the community creates more inequities, Langella said.
He reiterated the association's viewpoint that public and schoolhouse libraries serve unlike needs. While the Burlington Loftier Schoolhouse library is facilitating conversations nearly social justice and enhancing literacy skills, the Fletcher Complimentary Library can help people to apply for jobs, access the internet or "have a warm identify to be if they're experiencing homelessness," Langella said.
"The Fletcher Complimentary Library is designed to be a community resource," Langella said, "non a high school library."
Correction: This original version of this story misidentified the name of the library group that objected to an element of a proposed new high school in downtown Burlington. It is the Vermont Schoolhouse Library Association.
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Source: https://vtdigger.org/2021/09/21/library-association-opposes-combining-fletcher-free-library-with-new-burlington-high-school/
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