It’s rarely just one book that West Oakland Middle School students want to check out of the library that reopened this school year after being closed for a decade.

They bring piles to Robyn Brown’s desk, the books sliding from the clutches of their growing arms and hands. Brown, a library technician in her first year at the school, told me the students are excited about getting to use the library.

They’re excited about reading.

“It’s made a huge difference in being able to actually check out books to kids, put on some programming, create displays,” Brown said. “It’s been great having it open.”

Brown was hired in 2018 with funds from Measure G, a 2008 parcel tax, and she splits her time between West Oakland and Bret Harte middle schools.

In 2016, a citizens oversight committee recommended a change in the funding that school libraries receive from Measure G, which contributes $20 million each year to the Oakland Unified School District’s budget. In the 2017-18 school year, $1.6 million was earmarked for school libraries.

Instead of evenly distributing the money, funds have been allocated based on need. Schools in underprivileged areas, such as West Oakland Middle School and Frick Impact Academy in East Oakland, have received a larger portion of money, which was used to reopen dormant libraries. Schools in affluent neighborhoods, where parents fund school libraries through PTAs, have received less Measure G money.

But this month, the school district signaled a possible change.

On Jan. 10, Sondra Aguilera, the senior deputy chief of continuous school improvement, sent an update on a proposed change to the Measure G-funded library staff positions for the 2019-20 school year. In an email, Aguilera wrote that under the proposal, the Measure G library dollars would be evenly distributed to the district’s 87 schools. The plan needs to be approved by the school board.

If it gets the OK, each school would get about $18,000 of Measure G money.

“In the case that your site is not able to continue to fund the library staff position, we want you to stay in (the district) and are committed to helping you find a placement that best leverages your talent and interest,” Aguilera wrote.

Brown said West Oakland Middle School’s library would close under the plan, because there wouldn’t be enough money to pay her salary.

“It’s going to be really sad if I can’t be there next year,” she said.

I spoke to several librarians last week who are miffed at the funding proposal. Some are planning an action at the next school board meeting. Librarians who work in PTA-funded libraries wrote a letter of support for the current Measure G disbursement.

Here’s why: According to the school district, about 30 percent of the 84 school libraries are closed — many in low-income areas. Reducing Measure G funds at schools serving lower-income students would inevitably lead to the closure of even more libraries in low-income areas, denying underprivileged students access to learning resources. This would only increase the learning gap in Oakland’s schools.

Seriously, with so many students behind in developing their reading comprehension skills, how is closing more libraries going to help?

Trish Belenson, a library technician at Bella Vista Elementary School in East Oakland, wrote a response to Aguilera’s letter.

“With this (current) model in place, the district librarian was able to mitigate me being bumped on two separate occasions to maintain my position at my site, allowing for library programming to grow,” Belenson wrote to Aguilera.

In an email to me, Belenson said the “new allocation of library funds will further the divide of inequity and force library closures and library staff to lose their jobs if sites cannot come up with the supplemental funding.”

John Sasaki, a spokesman for Oakland Unified, told me the change is about giving schools more control of the Measure G money.

But I’m wondering whether the change that’s necessary isn’t financial. If removing spaces that foster a love for learning is considered a smart idea, perhaps the leadership at the school district’s central office should be scrutinized. Kyla Johnson-Trammell, the superintendent, should want students to be given more opportunities to learn, not less.

Fortunately, the funding proposal isn’t a done deal.

“We’re still kind of determining exactly the impact it’s going to have on individual schools and their libraries,” Sasaki said. “We’re still working through the process.”

Oakland school board member Jody London told me that she’s received a lot of emails about the library funding.

“For some people, equitable might be every school gets some of the Measure G money,” she said. “For other people it might be, well, we decide which schools most need a librarian and we direct the funds there.

“But any way you slice it, I don’t think there are enough funds to put a librarian at every school.”

Unfortunately, she’s right. This isn’t unique to Oakland. One of the issues in the Los Angeles public school teachers strike is a push for more school librarians.

“We’re still in the budget development process. There could still be a shift,” London said. “The budget isn’t final until it’s adopted at the end of June.”

Until then, Brown will continue to encourage students to keep checking out piles of books. She knows her students have a hunger for reading.

“I’m just trying to do a really good job of showing how our library is helping students and how much they’re enjoying it and loving it,” she said. “If (the school board) wants to come visit, if they need evidence, we have it.”

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr