A little more than two weeks after the brand new Conway High School opened its doors to about 2,000 students, some high schoolers remain without books for some classes, school officials said Thursday.
The school district has ordered about $18,000 in textbooks to meet demand after the number of students attending the high school increased, superintendent Greg Murry said. At the same time, not all students are getting regular textbooks for at least one course because the high school is “transitioning” to meet Common Core State Standards requirements, principal Joel Linn said.
The new textbooks, those meant to meet the increase in enrollment, should arrive in about a week, Murry said.
The high school — which was reorganized — is for grades 10 through 12 for the first time this school year. Linn estimated his school has up to 100 more students than the year before.
“I do know that it is typical in a growing district to purchase books for new students,” Murry said in email.
No parents have complained to Murry or Linn about the lack of books.
In an interview Thursday, Murry said some classes at the high school had “more students than anticipated.” That means more textbooks are needed to fill in the gap, school officials said.
But the increase in enrollment is only part of the reason not every student has a book. The school is choosing not to buy textbooks, in one case, as it moves to meet new state standards for World History, Linn said.
Previously, the school taught American History in the 10th grade and World History in the 11th grade, but American History will become an 11th-grade course, Linn said. Essentially, for this year, that means World History will be taught to students in two grades, he said.
“We don’t want [to buy] a large number of books that would only be used one year,” Linn said.
Next year, the school will have enough textbooks for the history class, Linn said.
Murry said buying textbooks is “significant investment” to the district, which budgeted about $308,000 for textbooks district-wide this year.
Students will have access of textbooks in the classroom and online, Linn said.
According to a school district survey last year, about 88 percent of high school students have access to a device like a smart phone, tablet or laptop to access the web, Murry said in email. Students without online access will have a textbook, Linn said.
“We’re making allowances so students have what they need,” Murry said.
Comments (10)
Add commentbrilliant
brilliant
Books
What about the kids at the middle schools that don't have books? This problem is not isolated to the high school. My child goes to Ruth Doyle, and she doesn't have books for ANY class. The teachers told me that there are not enough for everyone to have one and that they will NOT be ordering more books. They are expected to test off of their notes. How good were your note taking skills when you were 12? We have been given an online code for ONE subject...what about the rest? And what about the kids at the high school having to sit on the floor to eat lunch? There are not enough tables and chairs in the lunchroom for the number of students so they sit on the floor...gross.
Text Books
Have always been a scam at least for elementry thur jr high math that stuff never changes execpt some new group of grad students somewhere need something to do so they have them rewrite the textbooks.
No PTO?
I am fairly new to the education "beat" so, although I would have loved to talk to a parent or schoolchild for this story, the only person I knew (through another reporter) said she didn't want to talk.
I left a Facebook message for someone who I think is a parent, but didn't hear back. When I asked Dr. Murry about a PTO for the high school, he said there isn't one. Why is that?
I'd love to know more about issues at the Conway Public Schools (good and bad). If anyone has a story idea, call me up. Help me out a little here.
Thanks. :)
505-1246
I love that LCD is looking into
this situation. I love that you discovered another problem while looking into it - where IS the PTO? Keep asking tough questions, Scarlet, and good idea reaching out to your readers. Sooner or later, people will realize this is why we need local news sources.
Parent organizations tend to....
...fizzle out once the students move past the elementary grades.
That's sorta true
Why would a high school need a PTA? The students should be to the age where they should be able to handle those tasks themselves. I have no idea if my high school had a PTA. I think student government handled all that type stuff.
Oh, and sorry, we called it PTA instead of PTO, hopefully we are talking about the same thing. Parent Teacher's Association it was called there.
same thing
PTO stands for Parent Teacher Organization.
Huge facepalm for CPS
"The new textbooks, those meant to meet the increase in enrollment, should arrive in about a week, Murry said."
So they're trying to blame this on an increase in enrollment? Um, is CPS the only school in the country that doesn't require students to enroll in classes prior to school starting? They should have known several weeks prior to school starting how many students would be in each classes (give or take a few).
Maybe
It was a simple matter of storage with the old school gone and the new school not finished they may not have had room to store any new books.