My son attends Holtville High School and is a junior this year. For the past week, I have picked him up from school with his backpack and an arm load of books. The backpack weighs 50 pounds (I checked it on the scale) and the other five books in his arm weigh another 7 pounds.
My son is an athletic kid, but I would prefer him to go to school to learn, not become a beast of burden. The school told us two years ago there would be books in the classroom so the kids didn’t not have to lug books around, but that did not happen (I checked with three other students), and the kids can’t leave books in the classroom because the school is afraid they will be stolen.
So what can we do? Buy my kid a shopping cart to wheel books around, or hire a sherpa to ease his load, or maybe, just maybe, the school might see its way clear to allow the kids to leave their books in a secure area like a school book LOCKER.
I’ve heard all of the arguments that lockers only contain drugs but that just isn’t true for the majority, so let’s put our children’s health and limbs, and muscles, and joints ahead of the school’s fear and hit-and-miss approach to problem solving. Ask the Holtville school system to provide a solution to this safety issue immediately. Don’t make our kids bear the burden. — Concerned Parent, Holtville
I agree with the parent that school books have become heavier and heavier each year. Having two daughters who carry their books back and forth to school, I completely understand the need to look at options to alleviate the weight of the materials we require students to carry back and forth to school. It is true that we do not currently have lockers at Holtville High School, and with the current budgetary constraints throughout the state, it’s a safe bet that adding lockers is not in our immediate future. The lockers the school previously had were removed when the high school began its modernization process several years ago. At that time, they were not reinstalled or replaced due to the costs associated with installing and maintaining new lockers. I discussed the mentioned concerns with Jacki Hester, the principal of Holtville High School. She explained that students do have some options. Some classes do not require books every day. We are asking that each teacher begin to let their students know each day if a particular text book will be required in class the following day so they do not have to carry the books that are not required for that day. Currently, due to fiscal constraints, we do not have additional sets of books in each class. As to leaving the books in class, a problem we ran into was that of books “walking away” and then the student being held responsible for the cost of the book as it was checked out to him/her. More and more students are using the rolling backpacks which provide a great deal of relief over the traditional back packs. Some students leave some of their books in their PE lockers. Many students leave their books in their cars or their friends’ cars and trade at noon so they do not have to carry them all. I’m always open to more suggestions from parents, students and the community regarding any school issue. Parents should feel free to call or e-mail me at any time.
As a side note, the state legislature got involved in this conversation several times in the past few years, attempting to pass laws that would limit the size and weight of each textbook. Each time the bills were defeated under intense lobbying from publishers who complained that they would have to provide two or three individual textbooks to fit in all the required elements in each subject, resulting in lighter books but at a much higher cost.
Thank you for the question. If I can be of any further help, please let me know.
I know that this is a common problem in many schools. My daughter attended school in Arizona and the school had no lockers. The high school assigned each student their books and those books were to be left at home and used for homework. Each classroom had a set of books that did not leave the class, as the students walked in to class they would pick up a book to use and return it to the shelf at the end of class. The school had fewer books lost each year and there was never a worry about students loaning books to each other.
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