A lot of times high school AP classes use college textbooks. What we used to do is go down to our local store selling used college textbooks and buy an older out-of-date edition of the same textbook (for like $3) to keep at home. Typically, the only thing that changes from edition to edition is the layout and the pictures. We would leave our “official” edition in our lockers at school to be used in class.
If it is not possible to find a solution through discussions with the administration, then get together with other concerned parents and sue them. A potential lifetime of back and knee problems for your child is not something for the school to sweep away as being too systemically inconvenient to deal with.
The issue is not who can carry more than whom, or even how much any one person can carry. Rather, the issue is what damage will be done to children if they carry heavy loads. Such damage may not even be noticable until later years. Just because you can do something does not mean that you should do something. Let your body finish developing without putting it through excessive strain, for although you are not paying the price now, it may come back to haunt you when you are an adult.
This has often been proposed as a solution to the heavy-backpack problem, but most school budgets just wouldn’t cover two sets of textbooks for every student. Some schools don’t even have enough for all the kids to have one; they can’t take the textbooks home and because they have to share. Last year my daughter couldn’t take her History book home because they only had about 40 of them and had to leave them in the classroom.
My daughter’s middle school also does not allow backpacks to be used during the school day. She has to leave her pack in her locker. When she gets to school she has to get out what she needs for the morning classes, up till lunch. She’s not allowed to return to her locker till lunch, at which time she has to put everything back in her locker and get her lunch out. After lunch, she can go back to her locker, and get out what she needs for the afternoon. She can only return to her locker at the end of the day.
They’ve had some complaints because the girls are allowed to carry small purses (but not the backpack-style purses), but boys are not allowed to carry anything extra.
She said some kids have the rolling backpacks, but they don’t fit in the lockers. Those kids have to leave them in their homeroom, but are not allowed to get into them except at the allowed times.
I don’t rememer ever having textbooks as big as the ones she brings home, even when I was in high school. Her Math book is at least 2 inches thick. She also has to have a separate binder for each class, so that adds to the weight and bulk. It’s just ridiculous.
My son is only 4 and in preschool all these kids come in with back packs that are larger then they are loaded with the winter clothing for the kids if they go out to play.
I want to shout at these parents , " Don’t you ever listen to the radio weather reports?" This winter, in Michigan, the kids have gone out a total of three times to play. Three times. But these kids schlep their back packs to and from school.
Other than that frustration, I have nothing of value to add to this.
Out of curiosity, what is the policy for going outside to play and has it been clearly described to the parents? Here in Norway for instance it has to be below -10C, blowing a gale, or sleeting, and that’s made pretty clear to the parents. Going out only three times in a single week would be pretty extreme.