In Fulton County, some people are reluctant to take learning totally high-tech. The surprising thing: it's high school juniors and seniors who want to hang on to the hard-back textbook.
That revelation came Thursday night when Superintendent Cindy Loe was ask to defend $20 million earmarked in next year's school budget for Language Art textbooks. The $20 million is part of a $1.07 billion budget that the school board tentatively approved at the meeting..
"The community felt that was kind of antiquated," board member Linda Bryant said.
Loe told board members that, in all likelihood, the purchase will be some combination of paper and technology-based teaching materials. She said she ran the idea past her student advisory committee.
"Almost to the student, they want to have a textbook in their hands," Loe said, noting that some students said they wanted a hard copy for when their Internet connectionisn't working.
The materials aren't likely to be purchased until the completion of a pilot program next spring, she said.
Board members have been largely upbeat about the budget, which, unlike this past year's, doesn't include any large layoffs, unpaid staff furloughs or property tax increases. It also doesn't include any staff raises and dips into reserves for $43 million, said Robert Morales, the school system's chief financial officer.
Board President Linda Schultz said she was disappointed that they could not offer employees some salary increase.
"But we're not out of the woods yet [financially]," she said. "There are a lot of unknowns still in this budget."
This year, the Fulton system furloughed employees three days and raised taxes by 1 mill to 18.502, in part to offset a drop in property taxes related to falling home values.
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