TAKE ACTION
Act Statewide
If you want to make sure your district doesn't lose its School Librarians — or gets them back — now is the time to act. New Jersey is revising its school funding formula now, and this is the moment a School Library Program can be written into it. Parents are the voice legislators listen to.
What we are asking the Legislature for
Standards and structure
- An Office of School Library Programs — a New Jersey office responsible for School Library programming statewide: development, execution and accountability. Today no office owns it and no one is accountable.
- School Library Teaching & Learning Program Standards — developed with NJASL and built on AASL National School Library Standards and IFLA Global Standards, alongside New Jersey Student Learning Standards.
Funding that actually reaches the library
- An earmarked School Library Program appropriation — a protected line, on the model of the municipal library appropriation, that cannot be reallocated once adopted, sized at 1.0–1.5% of the general fund.
- Shared services and a State Aid category — certified School Librarians shared across small districts or run at county level, and State Aid for districts that cannot fund a program from their own tax levy.
Six steps you can take — the first takes two minutes
Sign the statewide petition
Add your name to the statewide petition. This is the petition that goes to Trenton and it is separate from your own district's petition (see Act In Your District). Signatures from parents in a legislator's own district carry more weight than anything else on this page.
Speak at a NJDOE public forum
The New Jersey Department of Education is holding regional forums on school funding. Speaking up in person puts School Library Programs into the conversation while the funding formula is being revised. See forum details.
Write to your legislators
Find your State Senator and two Assembly members at njleg.state.nj.us — the roster filters by municipality. Email and letter templates are in the Build Your Toolkit; a few sentences in your own words about your own child's school go a long way.
Write to the Governor and the Commissioner of Education
The funding formula is being revised now, and recommendations go to the Legislature. Ask that a School Library Program be part of what a thorough and efficient education is defined to include. Templates for both are in the Build Your Toolkit.
Contact the State Board of Education
The State Board adopts the administrative code governing library-media services. Send an email or letter, or speak during public comment at a monthly meeting — templates are in the Build Your Toolkit.
Write an op-ed
Local papers and community news sites publish parent voices, and legislators read them. Describe what your child's School Library actually does — or what disappeared when the position was cut. Short, local and specific has the most impact.
Why now and not next year
Goes to Trenton
Add your name to the statewide petition
Sign it and share it with your network to support School Library Programs in New Jersey's public schools. It takes about a minute.
Now take it to your district.
School Librarians are cut locally, in a single budget vote. Find out where your district stands and what you can do there.
Act In Your DistrictEvery figure on this page is sourced at schoolsneedlibrarians.com/sources.