How frequently does your school board buy new textbooks?

austenreader85

I was just browsing the site to my local elementary school just trying to find out how many laps around the track equal a mile.  I saw in the handbook that textbooks are expected to last for 6 years!  That just seems like it would leave things pretty dated.  Might not matter much in elementary school, though I find it hard to imagine books being in remotely usable condition after 3-4 years with kids that age, but in high school, it just seems too long.  Maybe I'm just too used to college where it seemed like they got a new edition every year so then the book store wasn't even willing to buy back my books.

Edited:  edited to finish my sentence about the track that I just stopped in the middle of.  Tired much?

laney75

That sounds pretty standard to me, but I really don't know because my kids aren't school-age yet.  I know when I was in public schools (elementary through high), our textbooks were pretty beat up.  I'm sure they were at least 4-5 years old most of the time.

Emiliana7

Sounds about right to me. I remember how in school you'd write your name in front of the book and there'd be a list of previous users of that book and it was cool to see who you knew from the last years people. I think there was always 5-10 people before me in those books. I can only remember once being the first to get a new book.

jacobs32

If I remember correctly, the last school district I taught in it was 6 or 7 years. Each year they updated a new subject and spent about a full year researching and selecting the series to buy. Textbooks are very expensive, with the way educational funding in going in many states I doubt many districts could afford much more frequently. As for high school, where I went to school we purchased our own textbooks like at college.

MommyMich

The district I worked in adopted a new reading series every five years.  They did get new workbooks every year though.  Things were in pretty good shape.  As a PP said, I remember the list of names in the fronts of my books in middle and high school. 

norbert5

The first district I worked at (which was a single school school district) replaced their books every 5ish years.  They also managed their money incredibly well.  We had was of those amazing smart boards.  I loved it.

The second district I worked at was in a bad way financially and it replaced textbooks on a rotating schedule but it ended up being about every 6-7 years.

The last school I worked at was a private school and the math books were so old they actually had discontinued some of the teacher support material and the last year I taught was the last year they were going to print the workbooks that accompanied the textbooks.  I believe that the books were from the early 80s.  They barely met with the state standards and I tossed one of the books in my class set because there was a serious amount of mold growing in it.  They finally replaced the books the year after I left but it was disgusting how old the books were and how outdated they were.  So I would have to say at best they were inconsistent at purchasing new textbooks.

 

austenreader85

I sort of remember the list too.  I remember it especially for elementary and middle school.  Not as clear on high school.  I think we had a lot of books which we didn't take home and we just had workbooks or take home worksheets.  I remember that especially for English.  There was a textbook we'd break out ocasionally, but usually it was independent reading at home.  Then again, I didn't try very hard in high school.  I got good grades without having to do a lot of work and during my junior and senior year my younger brother was going bsc on meth so my home life was kind of distracting.  I don't remember very much from those years, especially school related.

jcsumm0

In Indiana, this is set by the state.  Every subject adopts new textbooks every 6 years on a rotating basis.  So for example, this year is math, next year will be science, etc.  And like I said, I'm pretty sure that applies to every public school in Indiana.