There are a lot of new things in the school this year. There are new banners, TV’s in the cafeteria, iPads for the Assistant Principals and a Segway for the campus officer. There were also new inconveniences, such as the large class sizes and the wait for textbooks. It’s easy to assume that this is all related and that the school is spending money in the wrong places. However, according to Principal Greg Quinn there are very good reasons behind every expense.

Quinn started off by clarifying that, “the segway is strictly [paid for by] the Tomball police dept.” He also stated that the TV’s in the cafeteria are paid for by the Child Nutrition Department and are not affiliated with the school district, and is “a complete self-sufficient industry.”

The text book situation is a little more complicated as it involved not the schools, but the states new budget policy that caused them to arrive late.

Quinn explained that there were originally three “pots” of money in the school district’s budget for textbooks, instructional, material, and technology. However this year the state changed this system to one pot of money and moved the responsibility of choosing what text books to use to the school districts.

“For the longest time school districts were not in the text book business.” Quinn said. “[Now]we actually have to go and buy those text books.”

The school district had to choose which books to buy and analyze which books were completely necessary, one reason this took time is because the school district did not know how much money they were able to spend until the school year actually started. “We didn’t know how much money that was until August.” Quinn said.

It is a common misconception that the late textbooks were a result of lack of money; however, the school district was merely coping with the circumstances that were dealt to it by the state of Texas. The state’s timing was the key problem here and not the school district.