[LM_NET] HIT: Charging fines for overdue books

[Deborah Cohen <dcohen229@GMAIL.COM>]

Thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts and/or school policies about
charging fines for overdue materials.
Seventeen schools do charge for late materials.
Thirteen do not.

Most schools charge a .05 or .10 fine for each day a book is late.
Most schools charge .25 per day for reference titles.
Most schools have a cap ranging from $2.00 to $7.50.

Here are some of the comments:
I have no true data, but I feel it does help get items returned and teaches
responsibility.

I stopped charging daily fines and I am so less stressed.  A student with an
overdue book may not borrow another.

I'm not going to push for fines here because they are just more work for me.

I haven't had any flack from parents or students or teachers. When the
students question me about fines I always explain that in a perfect world
everyone would return their books on time and I wouldn't need to charge
fines, but since the world is not perfect it is a means to an end.  They
seem to understand that.

It is such an important life lesson to teach students -- to be responsible
for materials entrusted to them; to learn to meet deadlines, to pay debts
owed.

I charge $1.00 for the fine for an overdue book.  It is always $1.00, never
more or less.  However, there is a 20 day grace period so it is really five
cents per day.


I am going to include some of this data in my annual report with a
recommendation that we charge fines next year at the high school.  By the
way, my school has 1100 students; I have an aide 3 periods per day and
teachers who are assigned to the library as a duty period.

Deborah Cohen
Jefferson Tiownship HS
Oak Ridge, NJ 07438
dcohen@jefftwp.org

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