I'm probably the last person to see this, but the decision to close Maplewood Memorial Library from 2:45-5:00 on weekday afternoons (in the hopes of ending their ongoing problems with beastly -- and I do mean beastly -- middle schoolers) has been rescinded.
Instead, the town has given them extra funding to create new after-school programming. The town has also offered "non-threatening safety supervisors", but the library board isn't so sure about that:
“I have real issues about using security guards as our first line of defense against 11- and 12-year-olds,” board Vice-President Karen Pettis said in the Star-Ledger.
I don't know -- judging from the behavior described in the first article, security guards might not be a bad idea. That or a visit from Miss Viola Swamp.
I have noooo problem with deploying security guards against middle schoolers, especially considering that they're not there to confront the kids; they're there so that the kids know they should watch their behavior. So that you don't get laughed at when you try to enforce the rules (which has happened to me way oftener than I'd like. Of course, I'm not really old enough to project authority very well).
Posted by: Emily H. | 19 January 2007 at 09:15 AM
We have a cop in our library in the afternoon after school gets out (we're right next to the high school). If the kids get too out of control, and you know who they are, you can just ban them from the library (but it's hard to do). We had a family of kids in our library (all of the kids bad + stupid except for one who is very bright) that we're having banned (one of them threatened a cop--a 6-2" very large cop). Our director has to write the letter though. 3-6 everyday is pure hell sometimes.
Posted by: E_I | 19 January 2007 at 01:47 PM
Ha. Miss Viola Swamp would be perfect.
Posted by: Susan | 19 January 2007 at 06:25 PM
Wow, I've never seen anything like this at my local library....then again, I tend to go in the middle of the day when school is still in session.
I totally support the security guards. Kids don't have library "rights" if they can't have responsibility, too.
Posted by: Morwen | 20 January 2007 at 05:56 AM
I've often wondered about responsibility in these (and other) cases. Kids are absolved of their responsibility because they're so young (not historically, but that's another story). What about a society in which responsibility could be transferred, but never dissolved? The parents have authority over their kids, so what if they were also truly responsible for their actions, in the form of fines, et cetera, as if they were the ones being beastly?
All sorts of problems with that, sure, but the alternative that we have now may actually be worse, if famiiar. There's probably a short story in there somewhere trying to get out...
Posted by: Richard | 21 January 2007 at 03:23 PM
You're not the last person to see this. That would be me. I appreciate all the efforts by the amazing youth serving librarians out there, but most of them haven't been to the police academy! Sometimes when things get really bad, you need *threatening* security personnel.
Posted by: cb | 22 January 2007 at 08:14 AM