Clerical catastropheThis is a featured page


I have been in a primary teacher-librarian position for eight years.Our school has fluctuated from 17 classes-15 classes recently with 372 students at present and a four day library. I really enjoy my job and put in an average of 12 hours per day. I also spend an average of 3 hours at schooI on my day off as the school uses the library but no-one is sure of what to do to use the system properly...access is restricted to my "My Portal" and my clerical's.and guess who has to sort out all the problems when it calls for recovery with much data unrecoverable. I am not exaggerating or stretching the truth. I arrive at school from 6.30 a.m.- 8.30a.m. and leave school from 3.30 - 8.00 p.m. Every morning before school I am on duty and 2 lunch duties. After tea most school nights I then put in 3-5 hours on technology matters-listservs and searching for electronic resources, learning how to use new software programs, planning lesson, completing programs.....

I am expected to be part of many of the management teams to advise and guide teachers so that we are not purchasing resources that we already have. These meetings are after school or during the two "free" lunch times.

There just is not enough time to manage the tasks expected of me and I feel lucky to have a (new) boss who does listen to and support me (to a point).
I have clerical for 1 day per week however only 1 hour of that time am I available to work with, guide and train my untrained assistant as I have RFF classes. I am told that I cannot have her any other day and I was given my timetable so there is no room for compromise. This new helper is the third person in five years that I have been asked to train from scratch. This has caused many errors and anomolies to occur...this takes huge amounts of time then to bring back to a consistent and workable situation. We are absolutely flooded with resources that have dropped off the system- become "invalid" and need re-entering.

My new clerical was not at all computer literate. From the beginning I have had to train her in skills like how to use a mouse, how to access the internet, how to save........any complicated tasks freak her out. "I don't know how I will ever remember" and she usually doesn't!! We do write all instructions down step by step......It is so difficult to train someone for one hour, once a week and expect to get anything useful done.

As a leader I have been introducing new technologies to improve student outcomes. This has meant much of my time being used to "train"/"assist" teachers who can't work the data projector/video player/DVD player/sky channel/audio integrated system. "It won't give me any sound" they complain.."You need to flick the "On" switch here." It may seem basic but they get so stressed because things have changed.

I now have an interactive whiteboard in the library which I am in charge of encouraging teachers to use...very time consuming but I really hope that it is worthwhile. If I had a clerical to run the office matters I could really have a great result for staff, students and my sanity. A trained clerical who doesn't get interrupted 12 times a day to give out medications and attend to injured children and replace fron office staff for their breaks out of the time allocated to library clerical. If my clerical is away sick on her day then there is no make up, no replacement. You find that you just get further behind.

Our library has over 22,000 resources to be managed. There are new purchases to be considered and then ordered. I often spend my weekends shopping for resources for the library. There is never a chance to go during working hours.

I have areas of my office that I have not had a chance to go through in three years. I like to be organised but it is impossible. I cannot do more than I am already doing. I am very fortunate that my husband accepts the amount of time I devote to doing my job.

I am not getting any younger and I find it really difficult to exercise given the times spent on work and as a consequence my health is suffering. I have put on weight and have been needing physiotherapy twice per week during the school holidays and once per week since school started due to an injury that I sustained on the stairs in my split level library.

No, I did not get to put a report in as I was far too busy. I just got up and kept running-yes I felt guilty because I was running up the stairs when I feel hurting my left shoulder and my right knee. I was running to get to my assistant who I knew needed me, a class had just arrived and needed to be there from the very beginning or else I knew I would have to deal with much bad behaviour..and I had a parent trying to borrow some books from the parents section. I have had cortisone injected to the shoulder, take anti-inflammaory medicine and continue my physiotherapy. I am now looking at an operation on my shoulder and my knee. I tried to report the fall a few days later but was told I was too late-it had to be in in two days. I have a bad habit of just getting on with things until I just can't and that's what happened.

Unfortunately with Thin Client I have had many glitches that have been very time consuming and am currently still waiting to receive on site assistance from a help call placed in December last year. Our technology people are also so far behind that we just have to wait to get things working.

Please support teacher librarians with trained clerical time equal to the number of days a teacher-libraran is employed.We can then have a chance to get on to improving outcomes for students by teaching and professionally developing their teachers rather than coping with administration tasks that take up way too much time currently.


Posted Anonymously Latest page update: made by Anonymous , Mar 6 2007, 7:33 PM EST (about this update About This Update Posted Anonymously Moved this casestudy from campaign page. Thanks to the contributor, it is very illustrative. - anonymous

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