Book budget blunder

The Lawrence School District ordered an English vocabulary workbook for high school students last week that was originally cut from this year’s school budget. However, Parent-Teacher Association members say that no cuts should have been made and all books should have been available from the start of the year.

“After closing two schools, why would they make any cuts?” asked Marcia Ringelheim, Lawrence PTA council co-president and the parent of an 11th grader at Lawrence High School. “Why would there be any cuts that affect our kids and their academic success? About $95,000 in books was cut. That seems like a lot for textbooks cut from the high school.”

School officials said that once this problem was discovered, it was corrected in a timely manner. “This clearly was not what the board ever wanted to do,” said Dr. David Sussman, a Lawrence Board of Education trustee. “The way I understand it is that it’s something that fell through the cracks. I’m glad it got corrected and I hope enough lines of communication are open so when we hear about it, we have enough time to do something about it. No one is going to deprive our children of textbooks.”

District officials said that some books have already arrived.

Superintendent Dr. John Fitzsimons said the book budget is close to that of last year, once the vocabulary workbooks were purchased. “The district, according to our business office after adjustments to the budget, will be spending close to $800,000 on textbooks this year for both public and private school children,” he said. “No one, to my knowledge, is going without the needed materials, be they textbooks or workbooks, in any class, in any school, across the district.” There have also been instances where students have lost or did not return books, he added. “There’s always last minutes issues,” Fitzsimons said.

Ringelheim said there shouldn’t have been a problem. “There’s no reason the kids should not have all the books they should have,” she said. “They talk about fixing buildings, but there shouldn’t be any cuts, especially at the high school.”