With the new school year comes many new laws that Indiana schools must follow, one of them being that they can no longer charge students book fees.
With this law being put in place, schools will no longer be able to charge students with fees for curricular materials in classrooms. This is for primarily textbooks but does include other materials such as Chromebooks and workbooks. With this, the staff doesn’t know exactly how it’s going to impact the money for different classes.
“I don’t really understand totally how it will impact the money that we receive to fund our program at the current level that it’s funded,” English teacher Julie Breeden said. “It is something that we are really wondering about and worrying about a little bit.”
This law being put in place affects most, if not all, areas of study in schools since it makes students unable to keep books they would usually be able to take home and study with. Schools have to get an increased amount of funding to account for the law, and some programs have gone about getting more funding for themselves in other ways.
SHS, however, can still charge fees for lost or damaged Chromebooks and textbooks that are not returned by students by the end of their last year of school. Other than that, they have to get funding for new textbooks by using other methods.
With this new law, classes will be affected, but it’s hard to know exactly what obstacles they’ll face. Breeden has asked multiple staff members if they know how classes will be affected, but no one has been able to give her a straightforward answer.
“It hasn’t impacted us yet, we’re still working off of last year’s money,” Breeden said. “My budget for this up until November was already set.”
Other programs, such as the music department, will also be affected by this law. Band Director Jeffrey Maupin says that it’s something that they’re currently trying to figure out how to navigate.
“It definitely makes us find other ways to get money for some of our accounts that help us purchase some things for students,” Maupin said.
