Churchill High Students Were Expected to Buy Own AP Texts

Several teachers at one of Montgomery County's top high schools were instructing students to buy their own textbooks for Advanced Placement courses, a breach of state education code that has stirred debate among suburban parents about the duty of public schools to provide such basics as classrooms, desks and books.

For the past seven or eight years, a cadre of AP teachers at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac had told students to purchase the $90 and $100 texts, allowing exceptions only to those who could not afford them. The teachers wanted students to get a leg up in their college-preparatory studies by annotating the actual text, as is done in college, rather than keep notes on separate sheets of paper.

School system administrators, alerted by a parent, halted the practice over the summer. Now they are trying to change a pervasive culture within the school's AP department that put students "at an educational disadvantage if they showed up for that course without buying that book," said Sherry Liebes, the community superintendent who oversees Churchill.

This fall, the school faces a textbook shortage for six AP subjects: European history, world history, government, art history, psychology and human geography. Until the needed books arrive, teachers are under orders not to assign homework that requires their use. As of Friday, Liebes said, fewer than 30 students remained without books.

Outside the Churchill community, the issue has ignited conversations about all the other fees that parents face: chemicals for chemistry class, test-prep workbooks for calculus, Kleenex for kindergartners and transcripts for graduating seniors.

As a general rule, public schools provide textbooks, laboratory equipment and all other classroom materials that are reusable. Workbooks, pens, index cards and other items that have a one-time use fall in a gray area, sometimes provided, sometimes not.

Churchill might have been the only public school in the region that expected students to buy textbooks. An informal survey of schools in the most affluent areas of Arlington, Fairfax, Anne Arundel and Howard counties found no other example.

A teacher following the rules in Montgomery would provide textbooks to all students but not stop the occasional student who wished to purchase a book. That policy was "turned on its head" by teachers at Churchill, said Sharon W. Cox, an at-large member of the county school board. "They were telling families that they needed to buy the books, and if they couldn't afford them, they would be made available."

Teachers conceived of the rule as a pedagogical strategy, school officials said, and not as a cost-cutting measure, although it saved the school thousands on its $93,000 annual textbook budget. Teachers "clearly thought they were responding to the needs of the students," Liebes said.

For years, school officials said, the textbook policy drew no complaints. AP is a college-level curriculum, after all, and owning one's textbook made the experience feel that much more like college.

In Potomac, the median family income is $142,000. Three-quarters of the Class of 2006 took one or more AP exam. Until last summer, parents and students said, much of the Churchill community either didn't know teachers were breaking the rules or didn't care.

"I hate to say it," Jonathan Shim, the 2007 senior class president, said in an e-mail, "but the Churchill school district clearly doesn't have a specific monetary need for the school to have to buy books, if you get my drift."