Bringing books home from the school library--wwyd?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Collective punishment sucks, and the Geneva Convention bans it. Why not go after only the miscreants and their parents?

The sooner these children learn there is a special place in hell for those who do not return book the better off society and they will be.

I say this only partly in jest.

eh

Sometimes kids need to work for the good of the group.

But I do think the parents of the "late return" kids should be called.

[Anonymous]

OP you need to apologize to the librarian, make a donation - or buy them $50 worth of books from their amazon wish list and teach your kid how to respect library books and rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you need to apologize to the librarian, make a donation - or buy them $50 worth of books from their amazon wish list and teach your kid how to respect library books and rules.

it wasn't OP's kid. It was other kids in the class. So all the good returners were punished because somehow the school couldn't/wouldn't deal with the bad returners. i referred to this as collective punishment. Another PP called this everyone working for the common good. I think I had it right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Honestly, the OP's child is in kindergarten. Lots of kids have trouble remembering things in kindergarten.

I believe that books are meant to be read and not meant to be kept on a library shelf. How will a child learn responsibility if the child is not given a chance to practice it? I say that kids should be able to take books home, but not get any new ones to take home unless they bring back the ones that they have read at home.[b] Meanwhile, they should be able to read whatever they want in the classroom.

Isn't this common sense? A blanket rule stating that no one can take books home is ridiculous.

And what about the kids that want to borrow that book that has been in someone's house for months?

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. This is K, and if it makes a difference, for a classroom where all the kids have SN. My kid, for example, is not capable of remembering he needs to collect the book for a certain day and I doubt the other kids can either.

My kid has SNs too. Collective punishment isn't ideal, but the teacher and parents should implement a system. What day is library day, when are books due back etc. It might be hard and made more difficult if kids have different homes b/c of divorce or parents have SNs themselves, but it can be done.

It's not the end of the world if your kid can't take books home until there's a working system.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like this method exerts enough collective pressure on the parents of all the children in class, to sort it out.

[Anonymous]

Complain. This is bad school policy and probably against board policy

[Anonymous]

I am with you, OP. And its easy enough to impose the limit specifically on a child who isn't returning books. At my son's ES, a child may borrow 2 books at a time. If he hasn't returned last week's books, he may not borrow new ones. His name is on a list for that class. My child is pretty good about remembering -- he is enough of a reader that he is in the library exchanging books more days than not -- but if he goes too long with a book, he is placed on the list and he will tell me first thing after school and we'll get the book into his backpack.
I would email the teacher and ask for more info. At least lets s/he know you don't like the policy and s/he will have to think harder about it.

[Anonymous]

I thought that at kindergarten, and maybe first, that it was the parent responsible for returning library books. I ask DC every day, what does he need in his backpack, and go check that it's there, to get into the habit. But currently I make sure the library book is in his bag on library day. Am I supposed to put that responsibility on my kindergartener? Am I helicoptering?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am with you, OP. And its easy enough to impose the limit specifically on a child who isn't returning books. At my son's ES, a child may borrow 2 books at a time. If he hasn't returned last week's books, he may not borrow new ones. His name is on a list for that class. My child is pretty good about remembering -- he is enough of a reader that he is in the library exchanging books more days than not -- but if he goes too long with a book, he is placed on the list and he will tell me first thing after school and we'll get the book into his backpack.
I would email the teacher and ask for more info. At least lets s/he know you don't like the policy and s/he will have to think harder about it.

Guess what? It's most likely not the teacher's policy. It most likely comes directly from the media teacher or even directly from admin if it has become a rampant problem. There are not endless funds to replace books that are not returned. When it continues to happen the collection of books for the whole school becomes depleted and there are not funds to replace them. Even though bills are sent home when books go missing for long enough, the majority don't actually pay them. So then the book remains missing from the collection and the school is not reimbursed in order to replace it. Same thing happens with guided reading books that aren't returned. They are sold only in packs of 4-6, so if one book is never returned there aren't enough for an entire reading group and the school has to order an entire new pack, which is expensive.

Solution? Teach your child to put the book in their backpack directly after reading it. Treat it like you would their glasses or their lunchbox. That way if your child has trouble remembering which day is their book exchange day it will always be in their backpack just in case. If they are not finished with it, they can renew it during book exchange and bring it back home. Read it, put in backpack, rinse, repeat.

-teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am with you, OP. And its easy enough to impose the limit specifically on a child who isn't returning books. At my son's ES, a child may borrow 2 books at a time. If he hasn't returned last week's books, he may not borrow new ones. His name is on a list for that class. My child is pretty good about remembering -- he is enough of a reader that he is in the library exchanging books more days than not -- but if he goes too long with a book, he is placed on the list and he will tell me first thing after school and we'll get the book into his backpack.
I would email the teacher and ask for more info. At least lets s/he know you don't like the policy and s/he will have to think harder about it.

Guess what? It's most likely not the teacher's policy. It most likely comes directly from the media teacher or even directly from admin if it has become a rampant problem. There are not endless funds to replace books that are not returned. When it continues to happen the collection of books for the whole school becomes depleted and there are not funds to replace them. Even though bills are sent home when books go missing for long enough, the majority don't actually pay them. So then the book remains missing from the collection and the school is not reimbursed in order to replace it. Same thing happens with guided reading books that aren't returned. They are sold only in packs of 4-6, so if one book is never returned there aren't enough for an entire reading group and the school has to order an entire new pack, which is expensive.

Solution? Teach your child to put the book in their backpack directly after reading it. Treat it like you would their glasses or their lunchbox. That way if your child has trouble remembering which day is their book exchange day it will always be in their backpack just in case. If they are not finished with it, they can renew it during book exchange and bring it back home. Read it, put in backpack, rinse, repeat.

-teacher

You should know better as a teacher that collective punishment is crap and terrible teaching. Restricting access to books (for the kids who return theirs is worse). It's probably not the classroom teacher, but the library/media teacher's policy. Again complain. If it's the principal's policy, complain up higher. The ONLY thing this teaches kids is that if their neighbor forgets to bring their book back, everyone is responsible and that withholding access to books and literacy is acceptable punishment.


-another teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am with you, OP. And its easy enough to impose the limit specifically on a child who isn't returning books. At my son's ES, a child may borrow 2 books at a time. If he hasn't returned last week's books, he may not borrow new ones. His name is on a list for that class. My child is pretty good about remembering -- he is enough of a reader that he is in the library exchanging books more days than not -- but if he goes too long with a book, he is placed on the list and he will tell me first thing after school and we'll get the book into his backpack.
I would email the teacher and ask for more info. At least lets s/he know you don't like the policy and s/he will have to think harder about it.

Guess what? It's most likely not the teacher's policy. It most likely comes directly from the media teacher or even directly from admin if it has become a rampant problem. There are not endless funds to replace books that are not returned. When it continues to happen the collection of books for the whole school becomes depleted and there are not funds to replace them. Even though bills are sent home when books go missing for long enough, the majority don't actually pay them. So then the book remains missing from the collection and the school is not reimbursed in order to replace it. Same thing happens with guided reading books that aren't returned. They are sold only in packs of 4-6, so if one book is never returned there aren't enough for an entire reading group and the school has to order an entire new pack, which is expensive.

Solution? Teach your child to put the book in their backpack directly after reading it. Treat it like you would their glasses or their lunchbox. That way if your child has trouble remembering which day is their book exchange day it will always be in their backpack just in case. If they are not finished with it, they can renew it during book exchange and bring it back home. Read it, put in backpack, rinse, repeat.

-teacher

You should know better as a teacher that collective punishment is crap and terrible teaching. Restricting access to books (for the kids who return theirs is worse). It's probably not the classroom teacher, but the library/media teacher's policy. Again complain. If it's the principal's policy, complain up higher. The ONLY thing this teaches kids is that if their neighbor forgets to bring their book back, everyone is responsible and that withholding access to books and literacy is acceptable punishment.


-another teacher

PP you quoted here, and I didn't say that I agree with collective punishment. I was explaining why the school may have come up with this policy. Then gave a possible solution for people whose kids have trouble remembering to return their library book.

As lovely as it sounds to vow never to "withhold access to books and literacy" for any reason, the reality is that if there are few books left in the library because they aren't returned then there is less access to books and literacy for everyone. Plus, the school isn't saying that kids can't check out books--they just can't bring them home. It sounds to me like it's a temporary solution to stop the bleeding while they try to recoup the missing books. Budget issues are real. There isn't a never-ending supply of money and books out there.

At my school the media teacher and assistant don't allow individual students to check out books if they have a book more than 1 week overdue. They spend a lot of time calling parents and the parents don't respond to their calls or just ignore the requests. Then they ignore the bills that are sent home at the end of the year. Then the school spends money on replacing those titles instead of ordering new titles that are of interest to students. It's a sucky cycle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you need to apologize to the librarian, make a donation - or buy them $50 worth of books from their amazon wish list and teach your kid how to respect library books and rules.

it wasn't OP's kid. It was other kids in the class. So all the good returners were punished because somehow the school couldn't/wouldn't deal with the bad returners. i referred to this as collective punishment. Another PP called this everyone working for the common good. I think I had it right.

Maybe this shouldn't be looked at as a punishment. Maybe it's just that the school determined that the class is not yet ready for full library privileges and it's asking something they are not capable. Even OP agreed that her child was not ready. The kids haven't been banned from the library, they just have been given more appropriate usage given their skill level.

[Anonymous]

My school "loses" hundreds of dollars in books each year not being returned and parents not paying for them. So the students are only allowed to keep the books in their classrooms. If I didn't return books to the public library and didn't pay to replace them, the same thing would happen. Se la vie.