WINDHAM – In the face of an increase in behavioral issues, Windham Public Library staff members are taking new measures to reassert control over the library.

According to library director Jen Leo, in the past month, students, primarily from Windham Middle School, have become a growing menace during afternoon hours. According to Leo and other library staff, every day, about 20 to 30 students frequently engage in loud profanity, horseplay and bullying, disrupting other library patrons. Sometimes they take each other’s cellphones, pick each other up and lie about their names. One student has been permanently banned from the facility, and another will soon be banned, as well. Leo said she occasionally resorts to calling the police.

In late April, library staff attempted to mitigate the crisis through various measures. On April 23, Town Manager Tony Plante approved the library’s new code of conduct, which contains 35 bullet points cataloging a variety of banned behaviors. These include “entering into the library barefoot or without a shirt,” “having offensive body odor,” and “using audible devices without headphones.”

On April 28, Leo sent an email to the parents of Windham Middle School students announcing the new code of conduct.

“In recent months we have experienced a significant increase in disruptive behavior, mainly by students visiting the library after school,” Leo wrote. “We welcome students at the library and are encouraged by their presence, but behavior that is deemed to be disruptive and/or destructive will not be tolerated. In order to keep the library a welcoming and positive experience for all we have established a library user code of conduct policy.”

Leo, who has worked at Portland and Westbrook libraries and became the Windham library director in October 2013, said she is frustrated by how much time she spends dealing with behavioral issues.

“At 2 p.m. I get up and I walk the floor and I talk to the kids and I move them along and catch them in various infractions,” Leo said. “Is that the best use of my time?”

“In the afternoons, other people don’t want to come here because the kids are here,” Leo added. “So we want to work toward creating an environment that welcomes everybody and that everybody is comfortable being here. So I’m working with the town to create behavior policies and I’m working with the schools to create a dialogue with parents about the kids and their behaviors here and what’s appropriate. When necessary, I’m working with the police department.”

Leo’s colleagues agree that the problem is growing worse. Adult services librarian Sally Bannen said that many more students have been coming to the library after school this year.

“We have a lot more numbers than in past years,” Bannen said. “It’s been growing. We just don’t have the staffing to keep up with them.”

In the late afternoon on April 28, most of the students had already left for the day. But Robin Wells, a Westbrook resident who drives a school bus in Portland, complained to the librarians. Wells, who was visiting the library for the first time, said she was having trouble focusing on her reading because of a loud group of four students sitting nearby.

“They’re just people who seem like they don’t want to be in the library. They’ve said that many times. But yet they don’t leave. I’m very used to kids who are just being kids, but this is extreme,” Wells said.

Georgia Reed, a student at Windham Middle School, agreed that there is a disciplinary problem at the library.

“There’s a lot of, like, really loud people and they’ll be talking and saying a lot of things, like inappropriate things,” Reed said.

Reed said many sixth- and seventh-graders frequent the building after school. Some of the students will relax in the puppet room, which was designed for small children, she said.

“A lot of people will just come here and hang out with people,” she said.

Reed said the library has become increasingly popular through the course of the year. One of the reasons students frequent the library, she said, is because there’s nothing to do after school as they wait for their parents to pick them up.

“You can go to Corsetti’s, or you can come here,” she said.

But Alex Johnson, a 10th-grader at Baxter Academy who comes to the library every day when he is dropped off by the bus, was less sympathetic to the librarians’ exasperation.

“They shouldn’t really complain,” Johnson said. “They can just kick people out.”

Plante, Leo and several other library staff members said the growing student presence at the library had likely been initiated by a policy change at the middle school.

“I understand from some community members that there was a decision within the school department that the kids are no longer able to be unattended on school grounds,” Leo said. “We suspect that might be why we are seeing an increase.”

But Charlie Haddock, the Windham Middle School principal, said there had been no policy change.

“We don’t let them loiter around here in the school,” Haddock said.

Haddock declined to comment further on the issue.

And while Haddock, who visited the librarians on Monday – and promptly scared off many students, according to Leo – is not convinced that the library has grown more popular, Leo is certain.

“We’re a cool place to be,” she said.