A Saucon Valley School Board member expressed shock and concern over the cost of a new AP French textbook board members ultimately voted to approve Tuesday night.
“A hundred-and-eighteen dollars for a paperback book?” board member Bryan Eichfeld said, before superintendent Monica McHale-Small held it up to display it at the board meeting.
“Here it is,” she said. “It’s a very heavy book.”
“Are they gonna last? The paperback’s not gonna last,” Eichfeld said. “French doesn’t change much. I would think it’d be nice if we could buy books that’ll last.”
McHale-Small said the books need to be purchased because AP French is a new course offering at Saucon Valley High School.
She could look into the option of purchasing a hardcover version of the textbook, she said.
“That’d be $150, probably,” Eichfeld commented.
“Probably,” McHale-Small said.
When board member Sandra Miller noted that many college students now rent their textbooks because buying them is cost prohibitive, McHale-Small said she could investigate to see if there is a rental option for the book, although she expressed skepticism about whether renting books each year would provide any cost savings for the district.
“That one just kind of hit me,” Eichfeld said of the book’s price tag. “It’s just shocking. I mean, it’s…French. It hasn’t changed much. I mean, maybe a few words here or there.”
“I think it has the culture side of it,” Miller then interjected.
McHale-Small agreed, and said, “I agree that textbooks are out of control but this is pretty much, like, AP courses are like introductory college-level courses…and this is what they cost.”
When asked to estimate how long the textbooks should last, McHale-Small said they seem to be “durable” and should last the district “a while.”
A softcover textbook she is currently using to teach a college class at Temple is seven years old and in satisfactory condition, she said.
Following the discussion, the board voted unanimously to approve the purchase of the new textbooks.
