Lisbon is purchasing social studes textbooks from McGraw Hill. The textbook purchase will include physical textbooks, as well as digital textbooks for the district for a price tag of $54,069. The board approved the purchase Monday, May 23, at a special meeting.
Principal Aaron Becker said the work began on the curriculum review this spring. The social studies classes have many books in categories with publication dates from the late 1980s.
“For classes, like modern United States history, that has required more outside resources to teach that particular curriculum,” Becker said.
Along with the curriculum review, the district is also shifting when social studies required classes need to be taken.
Economics and American Government classes are being moved up to senior year requirements, not junior year.
American History is also being moved to sophomore year, which makes any social studies curriculum not needed in the ninth-grade year. There are elective social studies classes students can take them.
Teacher Lance Kamaus said this decision was made to benefit students who were involved in the fine arts.
“There were a number of students who were fighting how to fit a required class into their schedule and still be in things like choir or band,” Kamaus said. “It’s something we wish we would have done a few years ago.”
The move will allow students to take part in band and choir and not have to take an early morning physical education class their freshman year.
In other school districts, United States history has always been a requirement in sophomore years as well, so shifting classes to that grade makes sure students are in classes with students in similar grades.
School board member Abbe Stensland asked if there were any pre-requisites with some of the different history classes.
Becker and Kamaus explained there weren’t, and classes named for the areas they cover in American or World History focus on that time period of studies.
Becker said the teachers approved McGraw Hill textbooks because of their accessibility of content and lexile reading level.
Elementary and middle school principal Justin Brown said that was one of the things he appreciated from McGraw Hill’s presentation, was the ability for the textbooks to reach the lexile reading level and get the same material across to students of all reading levels in different categories. It did that by changing some of the vocabulary in the digital app, but not the content.
Bids for the textbooks ranged from $46,000 to $54,000, depending if the school goes for a textbook for every student or just enough for the classrooms. The same social studies textbooks would be used for a range of classes, unlike math or reading textbooks.
Kamaus said that he utilizes textbooks very often in his teaching, but the class that focuses on modern history was the hardest to teach from a textbook nearing 40 years old. He supplements education with items from YouTube and other sources.
During the May 11 school board meeting, board members had questions on social studies curriculum.
Board president Jen Caspers said she would prefer an option that provides enough text books that meets the way students best learn.
“There are students who do not have wi-fi access at home,” Caspers said. “We need to do what we can to make sure students have access to the textbooks they need to learn in these subjects.”
Kamaus was asking for approval to come as early as possible, so he and teachers have time to prepare, with the textbooks, lesson plans for the coming school year.