Last week, retired Hamilton County teacher Debra Weiss spent three days volunteering in a kindergarten classroom scanning book barcodes with an app on her phone. Ten hours and 2,700 titles later, one classroom library, out of hundreds in the district, was complete and ready to post online.
Tennessee law now requires all public schools to maintain and post a list of materials in the school’s library, as well as all classroom libraries, on the school’s website. But the task falls on teachers who are already stretched thin for time.
“(Teachers) are incredulous. They don’t understand how they can possibly do this on their own,” Weiss said in a phone call.
The law, titled the Age-Appropriate Materials Act of 2022, is an effort to “ensure that the materials are appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access the materials, and that the materials are suitable for, and consistent with, the educational mission of the school.” The law also prohibits students from reading the materials until they are cataloged on the website.
Hamilton County teachers have until Aug. 31 to complete their lists, according to an email sent to principals and assistant principals last week.
“In order to comply with new school library laws, the following actions must be taken,” the email said. “School librarians must provide a link to the school’s library collection by Wednesday, August 10th. Classroom teachers must provide a list of the books in their classroom library. The list should include a minimum of the title and authors. Teachers may select the format such as an EXCEL worksheet or use a program such as Booksource which will create the list.”
Weiss said Booksource, a book scanning app that can be used on a mobile device, doesn’t allow the user to input quantities. That means if a teacher has 10 copies of the same title, each must be scanned individually. Sometimes the barcodes aren’t recognized, and the book information must be added manually, which takes additional time, she said.
Deputy Superintendent Sonia Stewart said the administration has asked principals to give teachers more time during the day, but the task has to get done.
“We continually put more burdens on teachers outside of their daily tasks of teaching children,” Stewart said in a phone call. “But teachers are going to have to figure it out within the scope of their work or their day, which is, it’s a lift.”
Some principals are trying to coordinate volunteer efforts, but they’re struggling, Jeanette Omarkhail, president of the Hamilton County Education Association, said in a phone call.
“There is no time in the day for (teachers) to do that,” Omarkhail said. “There is no stipend to do it and they already do enough on their own time.”
Weiss said she’s rounded up a few volunteers and plans to do as many classrooms as she can.
“I feel compelled as a retired teacher to help out the schools because I see the incredible pressure that’s being put on the teachers,” Weiss said.
The legislation passed in March, but teachers received little instruction or communication about the district’s plans until last week, Omarkhail said.
“It’s ridiculous,” she said. “Because they did not have time to implement the plan. The district isn’t doing it to the teachers. This is something that’s coming down from the state.”
Omarkhail said she’s recommended that teachers either take books home or cover them with paper until they find time to scan them.
“They don’t want children, their students, not to have access to the books, but they also don’t want to do it on their own time,” she said.
(Read More: How Hamilton County Schools is combating racial disparities in literacy)
The Age-Appropriate Materials Act also requires districts to create a policy for developing and reviewing school library collections. Hamilton County Schools adopted a new policy in July, which only allows parents and guardians to make formal book complaints. The policy outlines criteria for the inclusion of materials that contain mature content, coarse language and suggestive themes.
Omarkhail invited Tennessee lawmakers to volunteer their time and help teachers.
“Those legislators, get them down here, scan those books,” she said. “The legislators who passed this bill, come help us scan these books. You are welcome in the classrooms.”
Contact Carmen Nesbitt at cnesbitt@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327. Follow her on Twitter @carmen_nesbitt.