Mira Costa’s administration handled this year’s textbook shortage to the best of their abilities, but in the future offering a mix of print and online textbooks would mitigate the problem of textbook shortages and would offer many beneficial learning opportunities.
Once a student falls behind in class, it can be a struggle to catch up. It might not seem like a big deal for textbooks to come in a couple weeks late, but it can have a lasting effect. This was the situation this fall at Mira Costa, when several students found out at registration that their textbooks books were not available.
It wasn’t until the start of school that the Mira Costa library staff realized that there was a shortage of textbooks. There were a number of students in classes, such as psychology and Advanced Placement Spanish, that were without textbooks. Since it is a state law to supply all textbooks, students did not think they needed to buy them. The administration quickly addressed the situation by placing order for the needed textbooks, but were only able to give a rough estimate of when they would arrive.
When asked about the shortage, Dale was very reassuring that this was being rapidly addressed and remedied. While the situation was handled to the best of the administration’s ability, this shortage proved Costa’s reliance on textbooks is unreasonable
According to Mira Costa Librarian Jane Lofton, part of the problem was an inaccurate forecast of the number of students taking each class. The students deprived of these textbooks had no choice but to fall behind in their studies or go through the hassle of sharing a book. It is unfair for students to be at the mercy of a textbook forecast, and the administration should have foreseen this problem.
According to Lofton, the textbook shortage also occurred because many books needed to be replaced. The library can only estimate how many books will be lost or damaged beyond future use at the end of the school year and based on their experience with this in past years. This is the only feasible system to replace books, however, an online option would eliminate this problem.
To reduce the potential impact of print textbook shortages in the future, the curriculum should incorporate online textbooks. By taking a hybrid approach of both print and online textbooks, there’s more flexibility built into the curriculum. If the print textbooks are late, the teacher can simply rely on the online textbooks at that point.
At this point, we’re not ready to go 100 percent online; however, eventually print textbooks may become obsolete. With the introduction of technology programs at Costa we are going in this direction. The majority of students have a smartphone or other device, which meant they could have all their textbooks virtually on their mobile devices.
Having online textbooks not only solves the inventory problem, but opens up opportunities such as giving the student more flexibility.
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