I, too, have to jump in here. The books belong to the school/district, to all of
them, not just one student. In the real world which we are preparing kids for, no
one says," you have such a hard life that the rules just don't apply to you" (
that's how we get big "kids" aka adults who think they are entitled to whatever
they feel is good for them) Having said that, I think there are probably different
scenarios for elementary and high school kids, because we should have higher
expectations of responsiblity for the older students. In some way, the student, at
any age, needs to be responsible.
Here's what we do
Follett is set to beep when a patron has an overdue book. I will say " John you
have something overdue ( can't tell the title at this point) and they will
invariably say "oh it's a book" (DUH!) I'll then check to see the title ( " I
returned that, my friend returned that, I'm still reading it,oh it's in my
car/locker, I have it here) If the book is only a day or two overdue, I will remind
them to bring it in later that day or the next day. If the book is weeks overdue, I
will ask them to go and get it from their locker. (I've never had a teacher object
to this- one of our building goals is Responsibilty/ Preparedness) Most of the time
this resolves the situation.
However, our rule is that if you have overdues you can't check out anything, and
we do "check out" the computers. Kids don't often care if they can't get another
book but if they can't get on the computer it is a different story! This is a hard
one for me because I'm basically a softy but here's how it goes.
If they have a book only a day or two late or if the assignment needs to be typed
and handed in today and the book is at home, I will allow them to "just this time'
use the computer. I tell them that this is just one chance and if they come in
again without renewing or return, they will be out of luck. I tell them that I keep
track of who gets the break ( I don't really although it seems pretty easy to
remember the next day when Follett beeps. At any rate this works! Very, very rarely
have I ever told a kid they were off the computers until the book came back. (book
is really overdue, they've had a second chance, they are doing research that can
use print resources) The kids don't seem to have a problem with this. They know the
expectations.
The other thing that seems to work is to pass out billing notices rather than
overdues. You can print either on Follett. The overdue notices are sometimes
ignored, but when you send a bill that says you owe money, the books seem to come
back in a hurry! It seems to me in high school, most of the overdues are just
'cause kids "forgot" or are too lazy to bring the books back, not because they
can't find them. When they are very overdue, the books usually come back trashed!
Just what works for us. Darlene
Darlene Yasick
Media Specialist
Hopkins (MI) High School
lib027yas@global.net
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