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In Florida, school librarians are called "media specialists" and hold media specialist certificates. A rule passed by the Florida Department of Education last w

In Florida, school librarians are called "media specialists" and hold media specialist certificates. A rule passed by the Florida Department of Education last week states that a "library media center" includes any books made available to students, including in classrooms. This means that classroom libraries that are curated by teachers, not librarians, are now illegal. Prepare for “route around the damage” moment where districts are going to start requiring teachers to get media specialist certified just to avoid the legal headache. I am not a lawyer, but the fact that it is a felony seems particularly aggressive to me. Usually stuff like this (related to how a school is run) is usually administrative law and the school district would be the one responsible for insuring that it is enforced (so they might fire a teacher for non-compliance, but it would be the district itself being taken to administrative court by the state government for not following the law, rather than a specific teacher). This is also just bad in general, but the fact that the law criminally targets teachers rather than being put into the boring administrative code just shows how politically and ideologically motivated this is.

yamtaddle 4y ago
Classroom libraries are a big deal. Every step taken that makes a teacher's job riskier, less pleasant, or less like what they want to be doing (teaching kids, without having to worry about whether some plainly-positive action is legal), drives good teachers out of the profession.
- unshavedyak 4y ago
  > drives good teachers out of the profession. Working as designed. They cannot possibly be so ignorant as to claim good intentions.
  - UnpossibleJim 4y ago
    Never underestimate the ignorance of the mob.
    - mindslight 4y ago
      The mob is ignorant, yes. But it's also the leaders who play to and encourage that ignorance, rather than telling the harder truths.
  - mikrotikker 4y ago
    How good can the teacher be if they're willing to read and subsequently provide books like "Gender Queer" to children? But most ITT are outraged "florida won't let us show porn to children!"
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  It also drives families with kids out of Florida to more sane educational operating environments. Florida already has the worst teacher shortage in the nation: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/01/22/our-children-are-at-stake-teacher-shortage-in-florida-among-worst-in-the-nation/ https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/01/22/our-child...
  - jackson1442 4y ago
    They've even allowed veterans to teach without credentials for up to 5 years (while working on a degree and teaching certificate): https://www.reuters.com/world/us/amid-us-teacher-shortage-florida-turns-military-veterans-2022-09-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/amid-us-teacher-shortage-fl...
    - jonathankoren 4y ago
      If you can fix a M2A2 Bradley, you’re qualified to teach calculus? I’m not sure I follow.
      - yamtaddle 4y ago
        A few states have done similar things (IIRC Oklahoma was another, for instance). Insane politics (plus the general, unavoidable unpleasantness of the situation) around Covid, plus a recent return of political demonization of teachers (see: this exact law)—which efforts, incidentally, absolutely do affect the day-to-day work environment for teachers—drove lots of teachers out of the profession, and now there's a second wave thanks to salaries not coming even close to keeping up with inflation, while wages have gone up quite a bit in the rest of the economy. Most of the country's having some amount of trouble finding teachers, and some places are having a lot of trouble, so they've taken some desperate measures to at least find warm bodies to watch the kids. I'd guess the reasoning with singling out military folks is that they've been kinda-sorta vetted (ha, ha) already, and they're likely to be fairly disciplined and able to finish stuff (like getting their teaching cert[s]).
        4y ago
- luckylion 4y ago
  What's the difference between a classroom library and the school library? I'm German, I've never heard of classroom libraries or anything similar in Germany. We have school libraries that provide the standard text books and most of the novels etc, but they're generally not walk-ins where you pick something to read.
  - thebetatester 4y ago
    "Classroom libraries" are for students to pick up a small book during a break in teaching to encourage reading. Usually these books aren't long and don't have a formal checkout process because they'll stay within the classroom walls.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    "Classroom library" makes it sound a lot more formal than it is. Picture like a bookshelf in the corner that students can pick a book from of during a designated reading time if they didn't bring their own.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - wolrah 4y ago
    A classroom library is a bookshelf in the class set up and stocked by the teacher of that class, usually so those students who finish work early have something quiet to do to kill time. Most of the classrooms I remember fondly as a kid had a selection of magazines along the same lines as you'd find in the average dentist's waiting room plus a mix of books based on the teacher's tastes. "The Way Things Work" was a recurring favorite of mine that popped up in a lot of classrooms through my first few years of school.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Two main cases: 1) Lower grades (i.e. k-6) will often keep a bunch of books in the classroom, so the kids have a selection available if they want to (or have to) read. This way they don't have to make a trip to the library to pick out a new book, as it can often be kinda difficult for a kid to find time to visit the library outside scheduled classroom visits, and that's an extra step between a kid wanting to read and being able to, that teachers would rather not have (since it might mean less reading). Often these sorts of classroom libraries are stocked by the teacher. Such libraries may be left behind by teachers retiring or otherwise leaving teaching, and the teacher replacing them may keep part or all of the library. 2) Upper grades, where you start having dedicated English or "Language Arts" classrooms, will often keep classroom sets (that is, enough books for every kid to have one at once) of the books the classes teach. Often there will also be other individual books, plus maybe some classroom sets of books that the teacher doesn't teach (maybe they switched their program up a bit, or maybe they're left overs from a previous teacher)—a teacher may keep these around or stock such a small library themselves and let kids borrow them, because being an upper-grades English teacher tends to correspond with liking and wanting to encourage reading. Some lower grade (well, properly, middle-grade or what you might call "upper elementary", but I'm trying to keep it simple) classes may also keep a few classroom sets once the kids can read independently and full books are being taught to and read by the entire class at once (a 4th grade classroom might have a classroom set of Charlotte's Web or something like that) [EDIT] LOL, on reflection that was really three cases with some overlap (classroom sets of books; miscellaneous books intended to be read in class; miscellaneous books intended to be borrowed) so, uh, worst structure for a comment ever, I guess.
- zenkat 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - kleton 4y ago
    I disagree with the assertion that destroying public education is a right-wing goal. While there may be some individuals or groups with that belief, it is not a universally held position among those who identify as right-wing. Additionally, making it a crime to teach is not a tactic that is being used by any mainstream political group or party. Education is an important issue that affects the future of society and should not be politicized or used for political gain.
    - mcv 4y ago
      But they are politicising it and using it for political gain. They are making it a crime. Anyone who still votes for these people finds these things at least acceptable.
    - mellavora 4y ago
      So perhaps you should review what many leading right-wing politicians have been saying for years about teachers, see i.e. Attacks on teachers never ‘as bad as right now’: union chief (2022) https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3621251-attacks-on-teachers-never-as-bad-as-right-now-union-chief/ https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3621251-attacks... Right-Wing Money Is Greasing the Anti-Teachers Union Skids (2018) \https://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2018/07/13/right-wing-money-is-greasing-the-anti-teachers-union-skids https://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2018/07/13/ri... The Right-Wing Assault on Teachers’ Unions https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-the-right-wing-assault-on-teachers-unions-wont-win-it-only-makes-us-angrier/2018/07 https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-the-right-w... or recall Scott Walker and what he did in Wisconsin. Or even look at the article currently under discussion, which makes it a FELONY for a teacher to have the "wrong" books in the classroom. How can you say that is not an attack on teachers? I challenge you to contact any person who has worked in public education for more than 5 years and get their view on the right wing. I think you'll find that there is an organized and well funded attack on US public education, which is driven by the right wing.
- aaronbrethorst 4y ago
  Destroying public education is the point, or at least a nice fringe benefit to this whole thing.
jackson1442 4y ago
> the fact that it is a felony seems particularly aggressive to me Agreed. There's really not analogy for this in the professional world, except for things that are _already a crime_ like fraud or negligence. I don't think most people on HN could be prosecuted just for failing to do their job to the satisfaction of their local government.
- jdmichal 4y ago
  There are certainly industry-specific constraints which include legal burdens. Just a subset of ones I'm personally familiar with: * Security clearances. * Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) in finance. * HIPAA in healthcare.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  Except for every licensed profession from skilled trades like electricians and plumbers to healthcare workers like nurses and EMTs.
wyldfire 4y ago
> Prepare for “route around the damage” moment where districts are going to start requiring teachers to get media specialist certified just to avoid the legal headache. If the certificate is a prerequisite for all teachers to get jobs then they risk their employment if they're caught with the prohibited texts. So this would only result in teachers culling their libraries to avoid losing their job.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
Felony inflation is rampant, and horrendous.
- notch656c 4y ago
  It's to make sure you can't be re-licensed in a profession, like teaching. Anywhere.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    In this case, it's to make the potential consequences so severe everyone takes the extremely careful approach, to the detriment of the students. See also: vague abortion bans, where doctors have to wait for conditions to become acutely life-threatening before removing dead fetuses.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    A felony also prevents you from doing a great many things, like finding any job or renting or most anything. We have built a society that punishes conviction for life, long after the punishment has been served. Add to that we’ve been making more and more misdemeanors felonies, we are producing a society of misery. These people are just cruel and self serving. They are scoring points by being more and more radical and destroying lives in exchange. They are vile, and I consider their behavior more felonious than most felons.
    - notch656c 4y ago
      Well America needs an underclass. Now that blacks (on paper) have equal rights we have to make somebody the cheap exploited underlings.
nimbius 4y ago
unfortunately the legislation is inevitable. Florida's neoconservative legislature has decided the only way to win elections consistently is with increasingly divisive culture-war brinksmanship. That the strategy works is unimpressive as fear and uncertainty are powerful motivators, regardless of outcome. That it has become such a consistent pattern in the past forty years of Republican leadership is mournful to say the least because its doomed to fail at the national level. The effort to recriminalize non-heteronormative behavior is a telling sign this party of small government and personal liberty has run out of motivational boogeymen.
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
A quick search suggests that other third-degree felonies in Florida are things like: felony battery, aggravated assault, carrying a concealed firearm without a license and resisting a law enforcement officer with violence. All rather mind-blowing to be honest.
- seanw444 4y ago
  I'm honestly surprised Florida isn't constitutional carry yet.
- dylan604 4y ago
  with all of the other inane laws that have come before this, this is still mind-blowing? with all of the rhetoric from the governor on all of the other topics, this is still mind-blowing? yes, it's absolutely an abhorrent thing to do and is just dumb at all levels, but is it mind-blowing or "of course they did this" kind of stupid?
  - therealdrag0 4y ago
    Why are you expecting everyone to follow Florida politics and news as closely as you and have the same calibration of what is expected to happen there or not?
    - dylan604 4y ago
      How could you not? It's not like I'm actively pursuing "WTF did Florida Man do today", but it's all up in my feeds. I'm usually too busy swatting away "WTF did Texas do that will infringe upon my human rights today" to be actively looking for others, but Texas and Florida seems to be in a grudge match on who can implement religious extremism into law the fastest. After the first 2 or 3 stories, you see there's a pattern. If this is honestly the first time you've ever heard of some zanny thing that the governor of Florida has done, then I'd have to ask what rock you've been under and is there enough room for me to join you there as it seems to be the only place to avoid Florida news.
danaris 4y ago
[flagged]
yesdocs 4y ago
Has no one read Fahrenheit 411? Jeez
- panzagl 4y ago
  They read it, it just sounds like a good idea to some...
- quantified 4y ago
  Do you mean Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury?
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    Fahrenheit 411 is about how tradition is important to freedom and explains the evils of Celsius.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  Is it approved for reading?
Miner49er 4y ago
The other way to route around the damage is for teachers to just ban all books in their classrooms. That avoids all legal risk as well, and seems to be the route that will be taken in the short term, at least.

yamtaddle 4y ago

Classroom libraries are a big deal. Every step taken that makes a teacher's job riskier, less pleasant, or less like what they want to be doing (teaching kids, without having to worry about whether some plainly-positive action is legal), drives good teachers out of the profession.

unshavedyak 4y ago
> drives good teachers out of the profession. Working as designed. They cannot possibly be so ignorant as to claim good intentions.
- UnpossibleJim 4y ago
  Never underestimate the ignorance of the mob.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    The mob is ignorant, yes. But it's also the leaders who play to and encourage that ignorance, rather than telling the harder truths.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  How good can the teacher be if they're willing to read and subsequently provide books like "Gender Queer" to children? But most ITT are outraged "florida won't let us show porn to children!"
toomuchtodo 4y ago
It also drives families with kids out of Florida to more sane educational operating environments. Florida already has the worst teacher shortage in the nation: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/01/22/our-children-are-at-stake-teacher-shortage-in-florida-among-worst-in-the-nation/ https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/01/22/our-child...
- jackson1442 4y ago
  They've even allowed veterans to teach without credentials for up to 5 years (while working on a degree and teaching certificate): https://www.reuters.com/world/us/amid-us-teacher-shortage-florida-turns-military-veterans-2022-09-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/amid-us-teacher-shortage-fl...
  - jonathankoren 4y ago
    If you can fix a M2A2 Bradley, you’re qualified to teach calculus? I’m not sure I follow.
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      A few states have done similar things (IIRC Oklahoma was another, for instance). Insane politics (plus the general, unavoidable unpleasantness of the situation) around Covid, plus a recent return of political demonization of teachers (see: this exact law)—which efforts, incidentally, absolutely do affect the day-to-day work environment for teachers—drove lots of teachers out of the profession, and now there's a second wave thanks to salaries not coming even close to keeping up with inflation, while wages have gone up quite a bit in the rest of the economy. Most of the country's having some amount of trouble finding teachers, and some places are having a lot of trouble, so they've taken some desperate measures to at least find warm bodies to watch the kids. I'd guess the reasoning with singling out military folks is that they've been kinda-sorta vetted (ha, ha) already, and they're likely to be fairly disciplined and able to finish stuff (like getting their teaching cert[s]).
      - 4y ago
luckylion 4y ago
What's the difference between a classroom library and the school library? I'm German, I've never heard of classroom libraries or anything similar in Germany. We have school libraries that provide the standard text books and most of the novels etc, but they're generally not walk-ins where you pick something to read.
- thebetatester 4y ago
  "Classroom libraries" are for students to pick up a small book during a break in teaching to encourage reading. Usually these books aren't long and don't have a formal checkout process because they'll stay within the classroom walls.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  "Classroom library" makes it sound a lot more formal than it is. Picture like a bookshelf in the corner that students can pick a book from of during a designated reading time if they didn't bring their own.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- wolrah 4y ago
  A classroom library is a bookshelf in the class set up and stocked by the teacher of that class, usually so those students who finish work early have something quiet to do to kill time. Most of the classrooms I remember fondly as a kid had a selection of magazines along the same lines as you'd find in the average dentist's waiting room plus a mix of books based on the teacher's tastes. "The Way Things Work" was a recurring favorite of mine that popped up in a lot of classrooms through my first few years of school.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Two main cases: 1) Lower grades (i.e. k-6) will often keep a bunch of books in the classroom, so the kids have a selection available if they want to (or have to) read. This way they don't have to make a trip to the library to pick out a new book, as it can often be kinda difficult for a kid to find time to visit the library outside scheduled classroom visits, and that's an extra step between a kid wanting to read and being able to, that teachers would rather not have (since it might mean less reading). Often these sorts of classroom libraries are stocked by the teacher. Such libraries may be left behind by teachers retiring or otherwise leaving teaching, and the teacher replacing them may keep part or all of the library. 2) Upper grades, where you start having dedicated English or "Language Arts" classrooms, will often keep classroom sets (that is, enough books for every kid to have one at once) of the books the classes teach. Often there will also be other individual books, plus maybe some classroom sets of books that the teacher doesn't teach (maybe they switched their program up a bit, or maybe they're left overs from a previous teacher)—a teacher may keep these around or stock such a small library themselves and let kids borrow them, because being an upper-grades English teacher tends to correspond with liking and wanting to encourage reading. Some lower grade (well, properly, middle-grade or what you might call "upper elementary", but I'm trying to keep it simple) classes may also keep a few classroom sets once the kids can read independently and full books are being taught to and read by the entire class at once (a 4th grade classroom might have a classroom set of Charlotte's Web or something like that) [EDIT] LOL, on reflection that was really three cases with some overlap (classroom sets of books; miscellaneous books intended to be read in class; miscellaneous books intended to be borrowed) so, uh, worst structure for a comment ever, I guess.
zenkat 4y ago
[flagged]
- kleton 4y ago
  I disagree with the assertion that destroying public education is a right-wing goal. While there may be some individuals or groups with that belief, it is not a universally held position among those who identify as right-wing. Additionally, making it a crime to teach is not a tactic that is being used by any mainstream political group or party. Education is an important issue that affects the future of society and should not be politicized or used for political gain.
  - mcv 4y ago
    But they are politicising it and using it for political gain. They are making it a crime. Anyone who still votes for these people finds these things at least acceptable.
  - mellavora 4y ago
    So perhaps you should review what many leading right-wing politicians have been saying for years about teachers, see i.e. Attacks on teachers never ‘as bad as right now’: union chief (2022) https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3621251-attacks-on-teachers-never-as-bad-as-right-now-union-chief/ https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3621251-attacks... Right-Wing Money Is Greasing the Anti-Teachers Union Skids (2018) \https://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2018/07/13/right-wing-money-is-greasing-the-anti-teachers-union-skids https://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2018/07/13/ri... The Right-Wing Assault on Teachers’ Unions https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-the-right-wing-assault-on-teachers-unions-wont-win-it-only-makes-us-angrier/2018/07 https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-the-right-w... or recall Scott Walker and what he did in Wisconsin. Or even look at the article currently under discussion, which makes it a FELONY for a teacher to have the "wrong" books in the classroom. How can you say that is not an attack on teachers? I challenge you to contact any person who has worked in public education for more than 5 years and get their view on the right wing. I think you'll find that there is an organized and well funded attack on US public education, which is driven by the right wing.
aaronbrethorst 4y ago
Destroying public education is the point, or at least a nice fringe benefit to this whole thing.

jackson1442 4y ago

> the fact that it is a felony seems particularly aggressive to me Agreed. There's really not analogy for this in the professional world, except for things that are _already a crime_ like fraud or negligence. I don't think most people on HN could be prosecuted just for failing to do their job to the satisfaction of their local government.

jdmichal 4y ago
There are certainly industry-specific constraints which include legal burdens. Just a subset of ones I'm personally familiar with: * Security clearances. * Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) in finance. * HIPAA in healthcare.
MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Except for every licensed profession from skilled trades like electricians and plumbers to healthcare workers like nurses and EMTs.

wyldfire 4y ago

> Prepare for “route around the damage” moment where districts are going to start requiring teachers to get media specialist certified just to avoid the legal headache. If the certificate is a prerequisite for all teachers to get jobs then they risk their employment if they're caught with the prohibited texts. So this would only result in teachers culling their libraries to avoid losing their job.

fnordpiglet 4y ago

Felony inflation is rampant, and horrendous.

notch656c 4y ago
It's to make sure you can't be re-licensed in a profession, like teaching. Anywhere.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  In this case, it's to make the potential consequences so severe everyone takes the extremely careful approach, to the detriment of the students. See also: vague abortion bans, where doctors have to wait for conditions to become acutely life-threatening before removing dead fetuses.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  A felony also prevents you from doing a great many things, like finding any job or renting or most anything. We have built a society that punishes conviction for life, long after the punishment has been served. Add to that we’ve been making more and more misdemeanors felonies, we are producing a society of misery. These people are just cruel and self serving. They are scoring points by being more and more radical and destroying lives in exchange. They are vile, and I consider their behavior more felonious than most felons.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    Well America needs an underclass. Now that blacks (on paper) have equal rights we have to make somebody the cheap exploited underlings.

nimbius 4y ago

unfortunately the legislation is inevitable. Florida's neoconservative legislature has decided the only way to win elections consistently is with increasingly divisive culture-war brinksmanship. That the strategy works is unimpressive as fear and uncertainty are powerful motivators, regardless of outcome. That it has become such a consistent pattern in the past forty years of Republican leadership is mournful to say the least because its doomed to fail at the national level. The effort to recriminalize non-heteronormative behavior is a telling sign this party of small government and personal liberty has run out of motivational boogeymen.

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago

A quick search suggests that other third-degree felonies in Florida are things like: felony battery, aggravated assault, carrying a concealed firearm without a license and resisting a law enforcement officer with violence. All rather mind-blowing to be honest.

seanw444 4y ago
I'm honestly surprised Florida isn't constitutional carry yet.
dylan604 4y ago
with all of the other inane laws that have come before this, this is still mind-blowing? with all of the rhetoric from the governor on all of the other topics, this is still mind-blowing? yes, it's absolutely an abhorrent thing to do and is just dumb at all levels, but is it mind-blowing or "of course they did this" kind of stupid?
- therealdrag0 4y ago
  Why are you expecting everyone to follow Florida politics and news as closely as you and have the same calibration of what is expected to happen there or not?
  - dylan604 4y ago
    How could you not? It's not like I'm actively pursuing "WTF did Florida Man do today", but it's all up in my feeds. I'm usually too busy swatting away "WTF did Texas do that will infringe upon my human rights today" to be actively looking for others, but Texas and Florida seems to be in a grudge match on who can implement religious extremism into law the fastest. After the first 2 or 3 stories, you see there's a pattern. If this is honestly the first time you've ever heard of some zanny thing that the governor of Florida has done, then I'd have to ask what rock you've been under and is there enough room for me to join you there as it seems to be the only place to avoid Florida news.

danaris 4y ago

[flagged]

yesdocs 4y ago

Has no one read Fahrenheit 411? Jeez

panzagl 4y ago
They read it, it just sounds like a good idea to some...
quantified 4y ago
Do you mean Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury?
- maxerickson 4y ago
  Fahrenheit 411 is about how tradition is important to freedom and explains the evils of Celsius.
lostlogin 4y ago
Is it approved for reading?

Miner49er 4y ago

The other way to route around the damage is for teachers to just ban all books in their classrooms. That avoids all legal risk as well, and seems to be the route that will be taken in the short term, at least.