No conversations about impact before school library positions eliminated
School district documents show officials didn't assess the impact of cutting library worker jobs
Christine Silliphant tearfully sifts through letters, poems and sticky notes from her students at the Hartland Community School, where she worked in the library for the past seven years.
The colourful creations handed to her last month mark an end to a fulfilling career suddenly cut short, blindsiding Silliphant and more than 30 other library workers across the Anglophone West School District.
For the first time in her career, Silliphant said, she hadn't felt her usual anxiety leading up to what's known as YESS Day, the year-end staffing session where positions and hours are finalized for the coming year. That's why the notice from her principal came as a complete shock.
"Talk about blowing your mind," she said. "The first reaction I had was 'What about the library? What about the kids? What are we going to do?' And he didn't have answers. All of it was a surprise to him, too."
As the day unfolded, Silliphant said library workers learned the district needed to find $9.2 million from the budget, and because of that, everyone's hours had been reduced to zero.
"The only explanation was, 'We really need to cut and come up with this money,'" she said.
That explanation holds true, according to documents obtained by CBC News after a right to information request. It shows a calculation that was rushed through without considering the impact of those losses on the schools, staff or students.
CBC News requested records, including communications, correspondence, email attachments, reports, memos, and minutes related to the elimination of library positions. It specifically requested the research, planning and rationale behind the decision.
In the 150-page package, there were letters from staff, parents and community members urging the government to reconsider.
There were also media requests and internal discussions about how to handle them, and pages counting up positions, hours and salary totals, but no similar accounting of the impact on students and their learning.
In fact, a media request asking about the impact on one particular school, prompted Julie Kilcollins, acting director of schools for Anglophone West to "chime in," saying, "this news was related to collective agreement requirement timelines, so those types of conversations had not occurred before the layoff letters had to be delivered."
But that wasn't the acknowledgement Connor Barry received in the end. Instead, the student reporter from the River Valley Sun community newspaper was met with what he calls a "boilerplate response."
"I was wondering how exactly the students would be impacted by this," said Barry, who just graduated from Woodstock High School. "None of my specific concerns were really addressed. ... It was a lot more of a financial and monetary-based response versus the more human angle that I'd argue is a lot more impactful."
When CBC News shared the internal admission that "those types of conversations had not occurred," Barry was stunned.
"As a student, I think it's utterly shocking that they would make decisions that catastrophically impact this province's youth without even discussions being had on student impact," he said. "With that, [and] taking into consideration New Brunswick's literacy rates, and I have no idea how you could make that decision without any forethought."
CBC News requested an interview with David McTimoney, the Anglophone West superintendent, but that request was declined.
Barry will be taking engineering at Queens University in the fall, but he worries about younger students who rely heavily on the school library, including his brother Griffin.
"Every single lunchtime he goes to his local librarian, [and] they chat," he said. "I've seen him be personally heartbroken by the measures taken here, and I can't imagine how many others have been impacted."
School library worker briefings
According to the documents, the news was brought to McTimoney on April 4, when he was briefed by the deputy minister of education and two assistant deputies on the need to find $9.2 million in the district's budget.
In subsequent days, "high level confidential briefings" were held with the directors of human resources, finance, and the senior administrative team. Human resources made a request to "pertinent members of CUPE" and others to postpone the YESS day, which was then changed to May 12, to give the union the two weeks' notice required under the collective agreement.
Finally on April 28, exactly two weeks before YESS day, a phone call went out to local union executives advising them of the layoffs, the same day pink slips were handed to employees.
"It was very unexpected for this to happen, especially where we had just been in negotiations," said Theresa McAllister, president of Local 2745 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
"We had reached a tentative agreement and boom, this happened. … Twelve days later. Somebody had to know this was coming down but never reached out to say this was happening outside of the normal layoffs at year end."
McAllister said there must have been more conversations about the "elimination of a whole classification," but "I can tell you I definitely was not included in them."
McAllister believes there were other more cost-effective avenues the district could have explored, since the elimination of library workers made up $621,460, or just 6.7 per cent of the total $9.2 million target.
"They say they value their employees and they take pride in education, but apparently the impact of what it has on the kids, on the workers, on the communities was not considered," she said.
McAllister said it all comes back to a lack of respect for library workers. Even when the Education Department came forward with an additional $3 million for Anglophone West in June, "the library workers were not even considered to be brought back," she said.
The Anglophone South School District eliminated 13 full-time and five part-time library worker positions, following the lead of Anglophone West, and didn't bring any of them back with an additional $3.45 million from the department either.
'It can be reversed'
Silliphant said she is still mystified by the decision, adding that libraries are not luxuries.
"I'd like them to reconsider," she said. "I'd like them to know that it does impact students on a very broad scale from kindergarten right up to Grade 12. In my school we are a valuable resource for teachers and students."
Silliphant said 12,000 books were checked out at her library during the recent school year, and she read more than 500 of them to students. She also held two book fairs, which brought in more than $4,000 for the school.
She said she understands the district was likely "under the gun" to send out the layoff notices in a timely fashion, but urges anyone listening that it's not too late to reconsider.
"People make mistakes," she said. "I would hope that they see this as a mistake down the line. It can be reversed. It really can."
Silliphant has applied for a reclassification and said she might do some educational assistant work this fall. With her master's degree in English, she may also explore supply teaching or possibly go back to her former career as a writer, but said "honestly, my heart belongs in that library."
"I felt like I was really making a difference for the children. And I feel honoured and blessed that I had that part of their childhood."
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