Textbook Inventory

So one of the things that happens in my job is I get stuck doing textbook inventory. That’s one of those things that technically isn’t my job, but it’s one of those things that people just expect me to do. It’s just like what it sounds like – I have to take an inventory of all the textbooks at my school.  Sounds pretty simple right?

At my old school, I could do textbook inventory in a day. Well, once I got rid of over 6000 books that we didn’t use any more that no one had gotten rid of for YEARS .  Tomorrow morning I’m going to collect the middle school books at my school.  It will take me a couple of hours.  So many of our books are online now, I only have class sets to check in and teacher’s editions.   Ah, but my school now is not just a middle school.  . . and elementary textbooks are a nightmare.

Our county uses Reading Wonders for elementary school. Let me attempt to explain what it takes to teach little kids how to read.  For Grades 2-5, every teacher gets 2 books per student – a literature anthology and a reading/writing workshop. Yes, 2 hardback books per student. Luckily, at our school we departmentalize for grades 4 and 5, so even though each ELA teacher teachs two groups of students, they only get one set of books. Each teacher also gets a Teacher’s Edition for each chapter. . .  That’s a LOT of books. 
Oh, but that’s still not all.  Kindergarten and first grade. Oh my!
Kindergarten doesn’t get textbooks for students.  They get big books instead. 43 big books for each teacher to be exact. Yes, I said 43. . . each teacher. Plus all the teacher’s editions.

But NOTHING beats first grade. It apparently takes 100’s of items to teach first graders how to read. . . They don’t get 2 books per students.  They get (are you ready for this???) 8 books per student. Yes 8!  4 Reading Writing Workshops – one for each unit and 4 Literature Anthologies – one per unit. They also get teacher’s editions – 6 of them. Then, just in case that isn’t enough, they also get 22 big books.  One of my first-grade teachers had 216 items checked out when she came to me.   This is what it takes to teach first grade. 

None of this even counts Math Teacher’s Editions- that’s the green books!   And we also are NOT counting Leveled Readers.  Tiny little books in 4 levels for each story in the book.  It’s unbelievable. Today, leveled readers almost pushed me over the edge. 

Now, here’s my question. I was a late reader.  I didn’t learn to read until the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade.  (Of course, I did start kindergarten when I was 4 so I was a baby.)   My teachers didn’t have all that stuff – but they taught me to read. I remember my kindergarten teacher having blow-up people for every letter – Mr. M had a  munchy mouth, Mr. F had Funny feet. and Ms. A said “Ah, ah choo!”  I don’t believe that kids today are dumb.  I don’t believe teachers now are ignorant.  What’s the deal?  I would be fascinated to see how much money our county spends on textbooks.

Now, why do I LOVE textbook inventory so much? So many reasons. I can’t ever do it fast enough to make people happy.  It takes a LONG time to check in that many books. You have to check them in, put them in storage and attempt to get them in some sort of order so you can give them all back out again.  And the storage rooms are hot. I was sweating before 8:30 and that was just the beginning.  And just for funsies?  I  get to take them all up, store them all, and check them all back out again in 8 weeks.  Yes, 8 weeks.  Seems like a lot of work for 8 weeks doesn’t it??