sufficient to pay for replacement copies when books become obsolete or
just too beat up to use.
What is not taken into consideration is book loss when students do not
return or lose their books. As an English department chair, Mr. Thelen
needed to minimize book loss so he could order new titles. He made use
of some simple but effective techniques.
First, he kept the needs of his teachers in mind. There must be enough
sets of each title so that all teachers who wish to use that title will have
access to it. In other departments this was simple as students were issued
a single textbook for the semester or year. Distribution and collection was
a onetime affair. However, Mr. Thelen’s language arts departments made
use of paperbacks and issued several titles a semester. It’s simple math:
The more books issued, the more books will be lost.
His department’s book losses were significant. Mr. Thelen met with
his teachers and explained the situation. They wanted to add more recent
titles. He was unable to do so because allocated monies were being used
for replacement copies of existing titles. The solution was simple: get
more books back. He established a simple policy: No student receives a
new book until the previous book issued is returned.
He advised teachers on ways to encourage students to return books.
Usually, the unit on a particular book ends with an examination. If stu-
dents are told that the return of the book is worth ten points on this exam,
more books will be returned. If the exam is “open book,” even more books
will be collected with the test. When his department implemented these
policies, book loss was greatly reduced.
When a school leader moves from department supervisor to principal,
he will need to establish school-wide policies. Mr. Pfizer in his Chicago
middle school implemented effective strategies. At the end of each school
year, any book receipts for unreturned books were collected by the super-
visor in charge of school security. He and the dean’s staff added targeting
book delinquents to their list of duties.
A school-wide list of book delinquents was generated and given to all
staff members at the beginning of the school year. Mr. Pfizer directed
that no student on the list was to be given a book by any teacher until he
presented a “book account cleared” receipt. (See chapter 4 for a differ-
ent method of encouraging book return that led to an irate call from the
superintendent.)
Be Aware of Workplace Issues 89