Back to school tip for all parents...
On the first day of school...
When your child is assigned all of his or her books...
TAKE PICTURES!!!
Take pictures of each individual book!
Front.
Back.
Binding.
And open it up and do a random "flip through" checking for any damage.
My son respects books.
He is not careless.
He places his books in his backpack.
He comes home and does his homework (therefore I see all of his books daily).
He puts them back in his backpack.
He places them in his locker.
He takes them to class.
Repeat.
Daily.
Ok.
He turns all of his books in the last week of school.
The woman checks them in.
She does a "look over"...front, back, does a flip through and then says, "Ok Evan, everything looks good."
She then moves on to the next student.
Now Evan even HEARD her saying to other students, "Oh, looks like we have some water damage!" or "Oh, looks like we have some rips and tears!"
She TOLD him his books were GOOD TO GO!
Mid-way through the summer I get a bill in the mail from the school for a $5.00 fee for a book that says, "Damaged...binding/corners".
I about hit the roof.
I can vouch for my son because I saw this books the day he checked them out of the book store.
I saw them daily when he brought them home for homework from day one to the end of school!
The woman told him, "Everything looks good!"
Do NOT EVEN send me a bill!
I saw those books!
Well, I sent a little e-mail.
Respectful...but letting them full well know that his books were returned in the EXACT same condition he got them and I was NOT paying that fee and this had better NOT hold up his registration in the fall!
Well...
Today was registration.
Nothing was said.
I never heard back from the woman I e-mailed.
Evan got his schedule, books, locker assignment...all went well.
We had better NOT even hear any more about that fine.
So my advice to ALL parents of school kids...elementary to high school...
TAKE PICTURES of those books!
Day one!
You may have to prove the condition at the end of the school year.
The books he was assigned today looked like they were about thirty years old!
You can BET I will be taking pictures of those!
Imgaine if they sent out those fines to everyone in the district.
And no one questioned it like I did.
And everyone just "was a good little citizen" and paid it.
Imagine all the money the school could make!
Let's see...four or give hundred kids at the high school...times five dollars a piece...yeah...that's a nice chunk of change!
Take pictures!
