Textbook Fee Fails to Solve Shortage--and It’s Illegal

In desperation over the hemorrhaging textbook losses at Crenshaw High, administrators three years ago began charging each teenager a $50 deposit before issuing books. The money was to be refunded when the student left the school and returned the books.

There was just one thing wrong with that solution to a problem plaguing many California schools: It’s illegal.

Making matters worse, there were no books for many classes, causing some parents to complain that they had placed a deposit for naught.

Following a stern warning from Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters aimed at all campuses, Crenshaw’s principal last week told staff members that the practice had been halted and all the money--$50,000--would be returned.

The episode was another sad saga in the district’s textbook shortage. Students often have to share class sets of texts instead of having books of their own to take home for homework or review. Accountability is so low that complaints by Crenshaw parents and teachers never made it to the top of the administrative ladder; the districtwide warning on deposits was issued as a bureaucratic coincidence.

Making the refunds is “not something I want to do, but it’s something I feel I have to do,” said Daniel R. Lawson, administrator of the South-Central Los Angeles school cluster that includes Crenshaw. “I knew [collecting the fees] wasn’t exactly legal, but I didn’t say too much because I knew they had lost tons of money. We can’t continue losing money and still providing books.”

Lawson said that at one point Crenshaw had recorded $30,000 in book losses. He said he believed losses had dramatically declined since the fee was instituted, although he had no hard numbers to support that observation.

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Some teachers at the school said the policy was embarrassing for them because students who paid the fee came to class with a fee card, legitimately expecting books--only to find there were no books to spare.

“I didn’t have books for four years,” said science teacher Vivian Corley. “Those years they were collecting that money, there was still no money to replace books.”

A parent who refused to pay the fee found her son was initially refused books in the high school’s book-rich magnet program.

Five weeks into the school year, Joy Cloud recalls asking her son Aaron about his books. “He said, ‘They won’t give it to me, because you won’t pay the book fee.’ You know who went up there that day: I did.”

The school’s initial response to her protest, according to Cloud, was that her son could work in the library or elsewhere on campus in lieu of paying the fee. She refused and ultimately was offered the option of signing a waiver promising to be responsible for his books.

Cloud’s son graduated last spring, but the situation still angers her. She said her opposition was philosophical--public education should be free--but added that just as importantly, $50 was a severe hardship for poorer parents. She claimed school officials never widely publicized the waiver option.

“They didn’t want us to spread the word, because everyone will say they can’t pay it,” she said.

Textbooks are in short supply at many schools around the state’s largest school district, a problem that entered the public debate last July, when a Times story detailed the scarcity faced by many students.

Since then, textbook funding has been increased by Supt. Ruben Zacarias, a process that inadvertently led Crenshaw to mend its ways. As part of that funding--which brought an extra $31,000 to Crenshaw--the district reiterated its rules related to books, including the no-fee rule.

“I can appreciate and understand their good intentions,” Zacarias said, “but it’s against state law and district policy. It’s that simple to me. There’s a difference between local decision making and total autonomy.” Neither Zacarias nor any of his deputies was aware of the Crenshaw situation until The Times inquired.

Another byproduct of The Times’ story is the district’s first school-by-school book inventory, now underway, to determine the scope of the shortage. On its form, Crenshaw estimated it would need 3,200 more textbooks and 2,700 paperback novels to provide books for every child in every class--as state law promises and district policy requires.

Reasons for the shortfalls at Crenshaw and other campuses are complex, including the high cost of textbooks, inadequate state funding earmarked for texts and intense competition over a small pot of educational materials funds at the local campus level. Added to that mix is the problem of book loss and theft, which is worst at schools like Crenshaw High that have high student turnover.

Last year, according to district statistics, a third of Crenshaw’s students who started in the fall were gone by the spring--and teachers say many of their books disappeared with them.

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Book deposit refunds have not yet begun at Crenshaw High, as administrators try to determine how best to issue the checks: Send them home or make them available at school? The school’s financial officer who managed the money was pulled off the campus last week while an audit is undertaken, leading to rumors on campus that the money might be gone, but Lawson said the timing is coincidental.

“We have a record of every parent that paid into the account [and] I know all the money is there,” Lawson said. “All of them will get their money.”

Principal Yolanda Anderson did not return telephone calls. According to minutes of a campus governing board meeting held Nov. 4, Anderson “announced that the school has been notified that they have violated the [state] Education Code by requiring a mandatory book deposit fee. Because of this, the school will begin to refund all of the collected money to the students. They will begin with the seniors and work their way down.”

In a memo to staff members dated Nov. 5, Anderson said the fee had been the idea of a committee of parents, community members, students and the governing board, under the LEARN educational reform program.

But literature teacher Toni Little, a member of that board, disagrees. She said the LEARN board never approved the plan, and in fact, she took pains to make sure other members understood why it was illegal, even at schools with the additional local decision-making latitude afforded by the LEARN reforms.

After the fee was instituted, Little said, she took her cause to Lawson, to LEARN leaders and even to downtown district administrators. Most of the higher-ups agreed she was right, she said, yet no one acted.

Book deposits are common in some states and a few, including Iowa, even charge students for books. But California has always vehemently stuck to the notion of a free public education. The state Constitution not only provides for free education, but states that a student should be provided adequate materials in every class.

Edmundo Aguilar, deputy general counsel with the state Department of Education, said the “free school guarantees” in California are quite strict: “You can charge if they lose a book, but not to check one out,” he said.

Confusion reigns at individual L.A. Unified schools about the district policy on lost books. But district regulations generally follow state law: If a student loses books and does not pay for them, their grades can be withheld and they can be prevented from marching across the stage at graduation.

But the rule falls short of a true hammer in several areas: The amount charged for lost texts is based on the depreciated value of a used book--not replacement cost; and a student’s actual graduation from high school cannot be blocked, nor can the provision of transcripts to a college or other requesting school.

Aguilar could not recall any book deposit or fee problem rising to the state level in recent history, but he said similar well-meaning conflicts with law arise frequently--for example, charging for required cheerleader uniforms and requiring children to participate in candy sales.

At the South-Central cluster office, Lawson said he plans to challenge that state law if he fulfills his dream of creating a group of independent charter schools in the area. The charter movement has been percolating there for more than a year. Lawson said he intends to submit a charter petition--the first step toward gaining autonomy from some local and state rules--in the coming month.

“We’ve got to create more accountability” for books,” he said. “We’re going to test the water on a fee.”