Canyon High School, Spring Branch Middle School, and Arlon Seay Intermediate School have an automated textbook distribution and tracking system using bar code technology. At Smithson Valley High School, department heads distribute the textbooks to teachers who then distribute them to students. Smithson Valley High School plans to bar code textbooks in fall 1999. The remaining schools delegate the responsibility for distributing and tracking textbooks to teachers under the coordination of an assistant principal, a clerical staff member, or an instructional aide. One school did not participate in the physical textbook inventory.
Some losses are still in dispute between central and school administrators.
Collections from students for textbooks are not reconciled to the physical inventory. As a result of the textbook losses, poor textbook tracking at district schools, late school payments or nonpayment for some losses, and other reasons, CISD did not have enough textbooks for its students at the beginning of the school year. Critical shortages were alleviated as soon as payments were made by individual schools. The coordinator of Secondary Curriculum is responsible for the manually intensive process of receiving, moving, verifying, and distributing textbooks, and for managing the textbook storage facility. The director of Secondary Curriculum assumed these responsibilities in March 1997.