Textbook Adoption

 

Year	Proposed Schedule of Funding	Targeted Subjects
FY 2020	708,750	Secondary Math
FY 2021	1,089,885	Social Studies 1-4 and 9-12, and AP Psychology
FY 2022	929,940	English Language Arts 6-12
FY 2023	985,550	Elementary Math
FY 2024	1,071,420	Elementary Science, and Social Studies 5-8
FY 2025	1,172,880	Secondary Science
FY 2026	452,250	World Languages
Total 7 Years	6,410,675
FY 2027	1,000,000	Annual Textbook Funding

New Classroom Reading Materials for K-5

In September 2018, ACPS purchased a new K-5 literacy program. The current program had not been updated since 2004. The new textbooks and materials are aligned with the current Virginia Standards of Learning. Teachers began using the newly adopted resources as a suggested core tool. Teachers now have resources to use when planning daily lessons with guides for how it will look in action.

Benefits of the new reading materials:

Along with the professional learning and training with the new materials, teachers feel supported with how to move the learning forward for all students. The trainers from the publishing vendors have been high level and have met the needs of the individual schools. 

Students have been able to see themselves as readers. This is changing the narrative from previous years where students just read and may have viewed it as a chore. Now students see themselves as contributing to a community of readers. Classrooms have rallied around book titles and themes and had grand conversations to guide students to new thinking. The joy the classroom library books bring the students is undeniably the greatest benefit of this adoption.

1. Provide direction for adapting instructional activities to meet the needs of English Learners, students with disabilities, and advanced students.
2. Include mathematical content that is accurately aligned to the content and cognitive level of the new Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL).
3. Include lessons that involve the use of instructional technology, manipulatives, and other tools so that students can visualize complex concepts, acquire and analyze information, and communicate their problem-solving and solutions.
4. Include materials that maintain high, rigorous expectations for all students.
5. Are culturally relevant and reflects the needs and diversity of ACPS.
6. Include experiences that introduce concepts through the use of manipulatives and other technologies and allow students to use a variety of representations to connect mathematical concepts.
7. Promote classroom discourse by explicitly requiring students to share thinking or strategies using the language of mathematics including specialized vocabulary and symbols.
8. Include materials that emphasize the use of effective instructional practices and learning theory that will deepen the development of students' problem-solving, reasoning, and other mathematical habits of mind.
9. Include relevant, meaningful, and engaging resources that engage students through inquiry, reflection, critical thinking, problem-solving, and sense-making approaches.
10. Include student experiences and activities that foster the development of mathematics as a way of thinking.

• Teachers can now have deeper conversations about refining the already provided materials to fit their teaching styles and students’ learning styles.
• The new resources give supports with working with students on, above, and below grade level in reading.
• The new materials have allowed teachers to cross-school plan units and lesson plans because they are using the same materials.
• ACPS has also been able to develop a common language around best practices with the new materials.
• Having a wide range of culturally relevant authentic books for students to read allows for a global mindset to be developed.
• Teachers have seen their students browse books and offer book recommendations to grow new thinking for all readers.
• Students are stretching themselves to read books they think are engaging and interesting.
• These materials have changed the way teachers view reading. Teachers see reading as a journey, not a destination.
• Readers grow and evolve to become stronger problem solvers and thinkers from the beginning stages of how words work with phonics in the text to how meaning is made when text complexity increases.
• Having supports for explicit phonics instruction with the word study materials has helped teachers have data-driven conversations about how to strengthen kids' phonemic awareness and phonics from kindergarten to fifth grade.
• Using a common tool to measure growth and common resources allows teachers in a school to collaborate more and have shared conversations around a common goal.
• Teacher conversations are more in-depth and richer because of the common new materials.