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MCCSC On Textbook Fees: 'We're Playing The Hand We've Been Dealt'

By Mel Fronczek

Posted February 11, 2021

Textbooks

(Adam Pinsker, WFIU/WTIU News)

Some Monroe County Community School Corporation parents are raising concerns over the annual textbook fee, which can be nearly $200 per child.

Lisa Fuqua has a fifth grader at University Elementary. She says her son has repeatedly not needed the textbooks. He would bring home pristine, even unopened books at the end of school years.   

Fuqua said she never knew the books existed because teachers wouldn’t assign homework requiring them.

“If I’m paying for it, my kid should definitely be getting something out of it,” she said.

This year, her son is using his textbooks. Still, Fuqua wishes schools wouldn’t require textbooks if students can get the information a better way, such as through project-based learning or online resources that may be more current.

Fuqua said she doesn’t think school districts should charge textbook fees even if they are used.

“Public schools are supposed to be free,” she said. “This just feels like another way to milk the public school system.”

Indiana is one of eight states that doesn’t supply public schools with course material funding. It’s up to school districts if they want to charge for textbooks and laptops by students’ families. MCCSC is one school corporation that does.

READ MORE: MCCSC Sent $300K In Unpaid Textbook Fees To Debt Collector In 2018

Director of Business Operations John Kenny said the lack of state funding puts districts in a tough spot: “We’re playing the hand we’ve been dealt.”

He said MCCSC has to charge the right amount to break even, and if it didn’t charge families for textbooks, the corporation would have to take funds from individual schools and teacher salaries.

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