Page 2 - Patrick's Updates

Good Afternoon,

We have completed all of our Social Studies Textbook Caravans & are awaiting at direction from the State Dept. Lisa & I will be at the State Board meeting on Feb. 12th. I will update you after the board meeting on where things stand. 

Of course, the Arts Education textbook selection has been affected by this delay in voting as well. While we did not do a caravan for Arts Ed, I did promise you a "digital caravan" that you could share with your Arts Ed folks in your district. I sent one video in late fall from Perfection Learning on their offerings. Here is your next choice on your digital caravan Davis Publications & their K-12 Art resources. Look

Friends,

We have had a wonderful textbook caravan season. The general feedback I've gotten from you along the way is that you LIKE your choices - which is good news!

You'll recall that you are expected to make your local board adoption decision at your March Board meeting - & then you are to send those results to Dr. Jones

We do not yet, though, have a state board vote on social studies or arts ed books. We are expecting some action and/or direction from Dr. Mackey & the Board at the February Board meeting. He has been clear that we were to proceed with the caravan; he knows you need these new social studies texts.

While you should NOT take Board action until we hear from Dr. Mackey, I strongly recommend that you be "sitting on G...waiting on O" with your district's recommendations. In other words - narrow down to a top 3 & rank order those top 3, K-12. I would communicate with your local committee what the situation is - why you are doing a rank order.

Good Morning!

A couple of you have asked me about AP resources for social studies - & I wanted to provide you some information.

First, a reminder that the ALSDE does not request submissions for AP Texts for review - most likely because recommendations for texts for AP courses come directly from the College Board, the designer of those exams. By definition, the purchase of AP books becomes an "off-list adoption" item. To assist you with that, we procure "local contracts" for 6 years. That guarantees the availability of the text at a set price for Alabama districts during that time period - which is what happens with a state adoption. Once we have that local contract from their company, we post them on our website for your easy access. You can submit that document to the state after your local board vote, as your "letter" from the publisher for off-list adoption (why they didn't participation in the process......because....they weren't asked to submit). Those

Good Afternoon!

Our textbook caravan season is going quite well!  We're halfway through the Athens caravan and then head to Mobile and Auburn before Christmas break. In January, we'll finish up with B'ham, Florence, Anniston, and Dothan.

Regarding the lack of action by the State Board....What we know is that Dr. Mackey continues to encourage us at Publishers' Warehouse to move forward with the textbook caravan season. This is in acknowledgement of the fact this is an important window of time for local districts to examine samples and conduct local reviews - in order to ultimately make a decision & have new resource by the start of school. So...the "not falling in love" season continues...you'll have to date a little a longer!  Seriously, as your districts begins to reach consensus, I recommend that you internally begin to rank order your preferences, as we wait on the State Board for approval.

A reminder for the remaining 6 caravans: We are planning the schedule and

Curriculum Directors & Textbook Coordinators,

We were informed that the social studies textbook adoption would not be on today's board meeting agenda & would be delayed until December. The same thing happened last year with science - and we proceeded on with the caravan schedule. The Board voted at the December meeting.

Dr. Mackey has instructed us to continue with the caravan, as planned & scheduled, & we are appreciative of that direction. Given the timeline & the logistics of printing/shipping, it is in all of our best interests to proceed.

The Textbook Caravan serves as an opportunity to have your team introduced to the series which have been up for review early in your own local process. Continue to remind your textbook committee & the teachers/parents who may review samples or see presentations, that nothing is official until the State Board votes. Your committee should not make final decisions until we know for sure which books

Curriculum Directors & Textbook Coordinators:

Good afternoon! We are a week out from the State Board vote on the committee's recommendations for Social Studies & Arts Ed textbooks. Lisa & I will be at the board meeting, & I will email y'all just as soon as Dr. Jones gives us notification of the results.

The textbook caravan season begins right after that, with our first caravans in Montgomery & Tuscaloosa the very next week - & then we have 4 in the month of December - Huntsville, Athens, Mobile, & Auburn. The remaining caravans - Birmingham, Florence, Dothan, & Anniston - will be after the first of the year.

Curriculum Directors & Textbook Coordinators,

In lieu of a caravan for Arts Education, Publishers' Warehouse is working with publishing companies up for state adoption to conduct a digital caravan of sorts. During October & November, I will push out videos from individual publishing companies along with any informational content which they provide. These will be individual emails, so that you may sort them in your email more easily AND feel free forwarding them on to the appropriate Arts Ed/committee members within your district for their viewing.