A Textbook Case of Plenty

Books fill classroom shelves and department heads’ offices at Fremont High School. They spill from the packed textbook room into unused storage spaces, and gradually creep into students’ backpacks.

This abundance of reading material would not be stunning were it not for the fact that last semester textbooks were in such short supply on the South-Central Los Angeles campus that students ended up sharing books that were typically tattered or out of date.

Today, there are shiny civics books showing Bill Clinton as president instead of Ronald Reagan, colorfully illustrated health books that for the first time offer students an in-depth description of AIDS, and the first geography books ever stocked at the school. There are piles and piles of novels and plays.

The replenishment began after The Times used Fremont High in a July story to illustrate the Los Angeles Unified School District’s widespread textbook shortage. In response, the district has allocated millions of additional dollars and pledged bureaucratic reforms, supplemented by private contributions.

Fremont English and drama teacher Jack Fris described the time before generosity swept through Fremont: Passing out disintegrating paperback copies of “Raisin in the Sun” was “a mutually depressing experience” for him and the students.

The absence of decent books was so ingrained in his teaching experience that on Nov. 17 when a student asked to borrow a novel for the weekend, Fris momentarily forgot about the new hard-bound fiction stacked in the corner.

“I had to hesitate,” he said. “Then I said, “Yes, you can!’ ”

Fremont was already counting on the district’s pledges of reform when Robert Mirvis, the chief executive of a Los Angeles women’s sleepwear manufacturing firm, telephoned Fremont Principal Rosa Morley.

Four years earlier, Mirvis had started his private nonprofit Adopt-a-Class organization after conducting his own unscientific survey: A friend’s daughter teaching in the inner-city confided that she had no supplies, and a ninth-grader from the San Fernando Valley complained that his books were 22 years old.

Since then, Mirvis has raised up to $100,000 annually to fill faculty wish lists at elementary schools, selecting one campus a year. Fremont was his first foray into secondary schools; he committed to raise half of the $400,000 the school estimated it needed to provide a book to every student in every class.

Some hard realities lay ahead. Fremont’s problem was not merely lack of adequate funds, but also competing adult priorities and chronic book loss fueled by high student transiency. But Mirvis was not dissuaded.

“Those kids that are sitting there without textbooks or materials . . . it’s not their fault,” he said. “And it’s the adult population of this city’s responsibility to help them.”

Not all of Fremont’s students are thrilled at Mirvis’ philanthropy.

Accustomed to not carrying home books, some chafe at the prospect of added weight and conceivably more homework as the book infusion begins to reach their classes.

“I ain’t carrying any book on my back,” said sophomore Lafonte Fernandez. “They got to pay me to carry books.”

But classmate Eunisha White scolded: “They got to pay you to learn?”

Teachers also remain reluctant to distribute the new books, saying they doubt that students will use them and fear that they will lose them. Morley good-naturedly compared these faculty members to “a poor child who for the first time gets a brand new spanking toy and doesn’t want to let go of it.”

Social studies teacher Rick Edwards said it will take time for the culture to change, for everyone to adjust to what teachers and students in other eras, and other districts, have taken for granted.

Not having books “has created a work habit situation,” he said. “The 12th-graders don’t understand this. I told them it was a gift, and they didn’t care. But the ninth-graders, by the time they’re in 12th grade, they’ll have books in all their classes. They’ll be back in the routine.”

Fremont’s own book audit, conducted in August, identified a need for 7,500 more books to meet the state Constitution’s promise of a book for every student in every class. That would cost the school about $420,000--more than four times last year’s textbook budget.

So far, Mirvis has purchased about $155,000 worth of books for the school, and he says he is not done yet.

Another $160,000 came from the district textbook budget. And a vice president at CBS who was touched by the Times story said she has raised more than $25,000 that she plans to deliver Tuesday to the school.

This past Tuesday, Fremont became one of five L.A. Unified high schools to receive $40,000 each from the California Community Foundation, which had vowed to raise $1 million more for books while helping the district find long-term solutions to the shortfall.

Fremont has received significantly more assistance than the average district campus is expected to get. A newly introduced piece of long-odds legislation would supplement that. State Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) wants to require the state to provide enough money for all students to have books by 2001. Schiff also is calling for an annual audit to determine where needs are greatest.

Weary Fremont High textbook clerk Linda Jones cannot help but smile at her growing inventory.

“I’ve checked in 7,000 books in the last month,” she said. It meant working weekends, hiring student workers, even recruiting her teenage daughter to help her stamp, sort and shelve.

But there is more hard work ahead, as administrators and teachers debate how to hold onto the new books. Despite diligent efforts ranging from peer pressure to incentives--teachers with the highest loss records one semester were sent to the end of the textbook priority line the next semester--Jones lists more than 6,000 books in her lost books file.

Edwards, who also heads the social studies department, introduced several suggestions to teachers recently, including weekly book checks and a policy of issuing books for classroom use only for several weeks at the start of the year, then checking them out to students with good attendance.

Morley has some other ideas, such as requiring students to turn books in before final exams and giving open-book tests.

“If we don’t come up with a uniform policy,” Edwards said, “it’s just like throwing this money away.”