STATE LEGISLATION PROGRESS of Bill #S2148Petition of Susan C. Tucker, James R.Miceli, Cynthia S. Creem, Ruth B. Balser and other members of the General Court for legislation to require certain materials funding and staffing levels for school library media centers.02/17/00 S Referred to the committee on Joint Rules -SJ 1179
02/24/00 S Rules suspended
02/24/00 S Referred to the committee on Education, Arts and
Humanities -SJ 1226
03/27/00 H House concurred -HJ 1500
05/01/00 H Reporting date extended to Wed. June 7, 2000
06/03/00 H Hearing before the Joint Education Committee
March 6, 2000From President of MSLMA, Joan Gallagher:
The MSLMA legislative initiative was filed by Senator Susan Tucker and Representative Miseli.
It is Bill #S2148
Our bill has been referred to the Joint Education CommitteeThe bill has 3 main facets:
- This is the time when people in the districts of those members of the committee should be contacting their
legislators to ask them to attend the hearing and give the reps an outline of the legislation.- All senators/reps will be given an information packet on
4/18 regarding MSLMA's goals and this specific
legislation.
School library media professionals will be included in the Foundation Formulafor essential personnel of the Educational Reform Bill
We were overlooked when the bill was written.
MSLMA standards for personnel and funding would be mandated, based on MSLMA standards.
See MSLMA posting of the standards, also available on the DOE site
A one-time amount of $100 per student or $40,000 per school system, whichever is greater, would be provided through the DOE. These funds would be earmarked for school library materials. Hopefully, this will be added to the annual state operating budget.
Joan's Message (3/29/2000)
Now is the time for us to spring into action. As the committee has 'extended'
action on the bill, we have a little time to prepare for the hearing, although the hearing will be held before May 1 and we may get notice of the date only a few days
before the hearing; I will post the date as soon as we learn it.
That means the people who have volunteered to speak should dust off their pens
/ word processors to get their three minute speech and 50 work abstract written;
please forward a copy to me a.s.a.p. so I can consolidate that info to have it
available for the committee members. Speakers; please contact me with specific
questions.
We can all do a small part to make this effort a successful one. Please contact your legislators describing the bill to them. Additionally, contact the members of
the Education Committee to request their attendance at the hearing and their support.
Also, we can use all the press coverage we can get. Contact your local daily
paper or weekly and ask that coverage of this important education initiative be covered. You might send them the FACT SHEETposted on our
web page www.mslma.org/mslmapages/LegislationFactSheet.html
Coinciding with the other efforts, Mary Weaver is leading an effort to send an
e-mail post card to all legislators during the first week of April. She is also
planning to bring a legislative information packet and INFO POWER poster to each legislator during vacation week-Tuesday April 18. She need volunteers to work with
her on that and will post details to the LIST. (See the posting on our page)
Another thought--contact any civic, educational leaders and parents to call their
legislators to endorse our efforts.
This legislation is the first of many steps we can take to bring our profession the
recognition its deserves so we can better do our job which is the teaching a love of
reading/researching/thinking to the students of Massachusetts.
Thanks for all you effort; if we all do a little; we can do a lot.
Joan Gallagher
Joan Gallagher's letter of May 15, 2000Friday I spoke with our lobbyist Frank Smizik; he has spoken with both
Sen. Tucker's office (Sen. Tucker filed 'our' legislation- Bill #S2148)
and with Rep. Harkin's office (she is the head of the Joint Committee on
Education who will be hearing our testimonies).There is still no definate date for the hearing still and, as the legislature is still discussing budgets, we may not testify until the last week of May and then we may have only one or two day's notice!!
I realize this is a hardship for those testifying; it's pretty difficult to get out of school on such short notice and it's hard for those who will be attending to show support. Unfortunately, with a late-filed bill, the ten day notice requirement is waived.
For the testifiers, please have your testimony prepared and
wordprocessed (20 copies) and, if you cannot attend the hearing, you can
forward the testimony to me and I shall deliver it (MSLMA can reimburse
you for copying and postage, if need be). Obviously, your testifying
would be a far better vehicle, but we all do the best we can.The hearings usually start at 10 am and all testifiers have to sign in
and are called by sign-in, but I hoping the testifiers can all get there
just before ten and have a few 'bad' stories presented early before we
talk about good programs and great results. More on that later.It would be a good time NOW to write/call/contact members of the Joint
Education Committee, especailly Rep. Harkins -617-722-2263- and Sen
Antonioni- 617-722-1230 -to express support of the legislative effort.
Additionally contacting other members of the committeen (see
www.mslma.org/mslmapages/LegislationList.html for the list of members) to request their support and their attendance at the hearing is paramount.Still, if we all do a little, we will accomplish a lot. Thank You.
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