DVUSD
– The spike in enrollment within Deer Valley Unified School
District had the unintended consequence of creating a
textbook shortage, which the district hopes to resolve
quickly.
At
Tramonto’s Sunset Ridge Elementary, which experienced
more growth than anticipated this school year, personnel
are trying to make sure all classrooms have enough textbooks
to go around.
DVUSD
Associate Superintendent Connie Harris said new textbooks
were ordered at the beginning of August to make up for
the unexpected shortfall and that they should be arriving
any day now.
“They
have ordered tons of textbooks,” said Sharon Matt, director
of curriculum. “They’re not finished yet.”
Matt
told The Desert Advocate it’s a tricky process of trying
to meet the needs of every student while still being fiscally
responsible, as the district doesn’t want a pile of unused
textbooks sitting around. Matt added that DVUSD keeps
a complete inventory of books and that if one school is
short, they look to other schools in the district to see
if there are any unused books.
“The
books shift school to school to meet the students’ needs,”
Matt said.
One
parent, Donna Dash, asked the governing board at its Aug.
28 meeting to look into Boulder Creek High School, as
her son informed her he didn’t have a textbook for some
of his classes and was told to go online to find the materials.
Matt
said district administration has looked into Dash’s complaint
and found there are enough textbooks at BCHS for every
student in every class.
“In
fact, there are more textbooks than students (at BCHS),”
said Matt, who theorized there may have been a problem
with distribution and noted the district is looking into
the matter further to make sure it is resolved.
In
other DVUSD news, the governing board voted to retire
some unused modular school rooms that had reached the
end of their useful life, some as much as 25 years old.
Jim
Migliorino, director of fiscal
services, said this would have the effect of reducing
the
district’s “square footage,” important to when the state
would grant funding to build
another school but, overall, necessary due to the age
of the structures.
The
district recently moved four unused modular school rooms
to Sunset Ridge Elementary to alleviate the overcrowding
on that campus.
