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I had a chat with my principal about the protocols involved in getting payment for lost books. Unsurprisingly, the families with the most lost books are also the families we are most worried about in other ways. Mental illness runs unchecked in these families, we regularly have to decide if such-and-such a thing is worthy of a CAS call, and when there are a collection of characters at the office, at least half of the usual suspects also have lost library books.

The bottom line: we cannot force payment of library books before letting these families do other things with the school community. We can't force payment at all. The reasoning is that for most of them, the problem isn't something fixable by more effort or better responsibility; it's about lack of resources, in particular mental health and money. The mental health issues keep them from being able to take care of their library books to begin with, and the lack of money keeps them from being able to replace the books.

The good news is that in the entire school, there are fewer than forty lost books, and nearly half of those went missing since March Break, which suggests to me that there's a good chance they'll turn up when I send home a letter with a dollar amount in it. Considering that at this time last year, there were more than three HUNDRED books listed as lost or overdue, that's pretty good. But the fact is, I'm not going to get back most of the money for those lost books. I'll get back some of it - mostly from those families where the lost book really was an accident and they're basically responsible people.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I can see where the "it's not their fault" justification comes from, and I get the equity thing. Heaven knows I struggle enough to keep organized, and I'm a functional adult by any reasonable standard. Making sure that the kids who need the library the most get a fair shot at using it, regardless of their parents' ability to pay library fines, is a reasonable goal.

On the other hand, I understand why more functional people look at decisions like this and get angry at those they perceive to be taking advantage of the system. I especially understand when it's quite obvious that they ARE taking advantage. We've heard these kids say things like, "My mom says we don't have to pay for this trip because you'll let us go anyway, so we got pizza last night instead." In an effort to understand and account for the ways in which it is not their fault, we've set up a situation where what little responsibility they might have taken is no longer necessary. We've removed any sense of agency from them.

I've run my library on a shoestring budget. I've spent just over five hundred dollars for the entire year; I've insisted on books being returned before another book goes out, though the head librarians in my board question that decision on equity grounds, too, with the result that I have one missing book for every five students instead of two missing books for every three; I've kept the place shipshape despite my own difficulties with organization, so that if a kid says a book was returned, I can pinpoint where it should be and either track it down or be very sure of myself when I tell them they didn't return it; and at the end of the day, I have no leverage to finish the job and keep my collection from deteriorating. That's incredibly frustrating.
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Did anyone here replace their original edition of Settlers when the new one came out, and keep the old one around?

If you would be willing to part with an old copy, or if you upgrade at any point in the next, say, six months, I would love to have your old copy. I'd like to run a games club at school in the fall, and Settlers is great for basic probability and strategy. It can also be played start to finish in about 45 minutes once you know the game, and our lunches are 40 minutes long, so kids could conceivably play an entire game during a lunch hour if they were quick about it.

If I don't get any games this way, I'll be holding a game raffle in the fall to raise money to buy some games for the club. The list of games I'd like to teach the kids includes, but is not limited to:

Mancala
Checkers
Chess
Settlers of Catan
Carcassone
Monopoly
Payday
Cribbage and other card games

Some of these - chess, checkers, mancala, cribbage - can be bought quite cheaply, for a few bucks apiece. I could budget thirty bucks for ten to twelve kids to play at once and supply those games. The others are more expensive, with Settlers and Carcassone topping the list. I doubt I'll get much of a budget for this - I'd be surprised to get fifty bucks - so any help anyone would like to offer would be valuable.

I'll repost this in August when I'm sure I've a) got the job, and b) looked at my own supplies to see what I can come up with. Right now it's the genesis of an idea. I'm thinking six weeks per grade, starting with the older grades around the end of September. We'll see how it works.

May 2020

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