District unveils new textbook evaluation checklist to guide ELA adoption

Mrs. Petrie, the district's Director of OTL, briefed the policy committee on a new AR (administrative regulation) meant to standardize textbook evaluation as part of Policy 108.

She described a three-section checklist: teacher-facing questions about alignment and usability; an OTL review of content authority and publisher references; and vendor-facing accessibility and digital-material compliance questions tied to federal accessibility requirements. Petrie said the ELA curriculum-review teams will pilot the AR 108AR1 checklist in a practice session.

"So the first section . . . is questions the teachers would be answering when they are reviewing material," Petrie said, describing the teacher-review portion. She also noted the district's six-year curriculum review cycle and explained that a "year five" evaluation is intended to ensure continued relevance rather than automatically triggering a purchase.

The committee asked whether ARs are approved by the board or delegated to administration; staff said all ARs in this process have been brought through first and second reads to the board. The committee asked staff to supply redlined/marked-up versions showing additions and deletions ahead of the next meeting.

Next steps: staff will circulate the AR 108AR1 evaluation form to curriculum teams for the pilot and provide redlined policy drafts to board members before the next committee meeting.