Cancelled textbook order confuses and stalls AP and Honors classes

New textbooks for Advanced Placement (AP) classes, ordered in spring for the 2015-2016 school year, are starting to arrive.

A class set of books for Alan Rissberger’s AP Environmental Science and a set of America:

A Narrative History 9th Edition ordered for Kathryn Murchison’s AP United States History (APUSH) class did not arrive on time.

The district received the order but never placed it with the publisher, preventing the textbooks from being delivered before the school year got underway.

The textbooks for Murchison’s AP class arrived October 2. Murchison said she

and her students are glad they arrived, albeit later than expected.

Murchison’s two AP classes have worked without a class set until this point.

“The situation has definitely been an inconvenience for the students. Some have been ordering their own books, while have been using older editions,” Murchison said.

Due to varied editions of textbooks, it is difficult for students to on the same page.

“The books all have the same information, but each edition has it in a different chapter and it’s pretty confusing sometimes,” junior Shea Golden said.

Murchison adapted her class to help amend the issue by making quizzes open ended and leaving many questions open for discussion. The temporary class structure helped students until the new textbooks arrived.

Murchison has worked at Chapel Hill High School for three years, and she had not previously ordered textbooks for her APUSH class.

The state added money to the budget for the purchase of new textbooks this year, allowing the school to place the orders.

Principal Sulura Jackson and the Chapel Hill High School administration stepped in after the books were not ordered, ensuring that a new order was placed.

While Murchison’s textbooks arrived October 2, Rissberger’s have yet to come in.

APUSH students said they are thankful that the problem has finally been solved.

“Using old textbooks has definitely been a little bit difficult, but I’m just happy it’s fixed,” senior T.J. Malloy said.

Murchison ordered 75 books and Rissberger ordered 90.

Senior Sydney Davis is in one of the Honors Earth Science class that has yet to receive its books, but she was not bothered by the missing order.

“I don’t mind not having [the textbooks],” Davis said. “Textbooks are for the weak, anyway. All the knowledge I could ever need is at my fingertips.”

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