By Joshua Walther
COBLESKILL — On Monday evening, the public surged into the CRCS Board of Education meeting to speak out against the proposed budget cuts of an elementary librarian position.
The cut suggests that the full-time position will be eliminated, and librarians from other buildings will cover that shift to keep the Radez library open on certain days.
Upon opening the public comment period, President Bruce Tryon asked that comments be kept to two minutes, and noted that the Board will not respond to such comments.
In total, there were seven speakers that advocated for the district keeping the position, and they ranged from parents to faculty to even a student.
The first was from a parent of four children that would be impacted, and found it strange that instructional staff is being considered for a cut when they make up less than half of the district’s total staff.
“It’s really hard to believe that there are no cuts to be made elsewhere,” the parent said.
Another speaker, a graduate from CRCS, gave her own testimonial on how much the middle school library meant to her.
“The librarian on staff then helped me survive middle school. That’s what you would be taking away. We should try to avoid student-facing cuts.”
A CRCS librarian was also given the chance to speak, saying that Radez students have read a total of 60,000 minutes in just the month of March alone.
“Reading is so important to these students. They need the library.”
Each participant continued to back the sentiments of those who came before, but it was a currently enrolled high school student that may have gotten the largest applause of the night.
“I’ve never seen students get as invested in a budget as they are in this one,” she said, commenting on the overwhelming support for the cut positions. “What I’m hearing is that they want their librarian, and they want their art teacher. If you get rid of these teachers, you are ruining their programs.”
Member Jason Gagnon made his own position known, siding with the outraged audience. “You don’t fall in love with reading by reading excerpts in a classroom. You fall in love by reading books.”
He went further with statistical information about the affected students, saying “32% of students are grade-proficient. That means two thirds of the student body aren’t being supported.”
All members of the Board lamented the loss of the librarian, but Vice President Dominga Lent offered her thoughts, believing that the other librarians filling in will still foster an area for reading.
“I completely disagree,” said Mr. Gagnon. “We’re destroying the library. We’d create a generation who wouldn’t read.”
The Board took both the public comments and the remarks from Mr. Gagnon in stride and thanked everyone for advocating, but ultimately refused to change the cuts.
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