School board approves $1M for learning gains

TEXARKANA — The Texarkana School Board approved the purchase of over $1 million in instructional materials and resources during a regular meeting on Tuesday.

The Texarkana School District Math and Science subcommittees recommended purchasing the materials to address learning loss and provide improvements to the math curriculum.

To address these issues, the district made two large purchases: • McGraw Hill Reveal Math Instructional materials and resources for $614,930 from the Educator Book Depository (a single-source provider), with funding coming from Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds. • Savvas Science Instructional Materials and resources for $488,170 from the Educator Book Depository, with funding also coming from Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds. The federal funds are provided to state educational agencies and school districts to help safely reopen and sustain the safe operation of schools and address the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on students.

The McGraw materials, which are for kindergarten up to those in Algebra 2 classes, is a core math program called “Reveal Math.” The instructional materials were deemed high quality by the math subcommittee members, district math teachers and the Arkansas Department of Education.

The Savvas purchase is for grades 3-12. Grades 3-8 will have a comprehensive science program called “Elevate Science.” Grades 9-12 will use course-specific instructional materials.

The instructional materials were vetted by the science subcommittee and campus science teachers for alignment to the Arkansas standards for science instruction.

Both purchases include hard copy student editions, teacher editions, requested labs and digital copies available for six years.

In other business, the board approved the purchase of equipment and supplies for Arkansas High School from Magee Enterprises, Inc. in the amount of $81,676. Funding comes from the district’s magnet grant.