Each year school districts have the opportunity to use state distributed funds to purchase new instructional materials in one content area. The materials purchased must be from the state adoption list provided by the state Department of Education. These programs are designed to focus on the state standards in each particular content area. Typically content area for any given adoption is set forth by the state department on a seven year rotation. During the 2007-08 school year our Board of Education approved the purchase of Science materials. During the 2009-10 school year our Board approved the purchase of Math materials. During the 2010-11 year, we will consider an English Language Arts/English Language Development purchase. The process for selection of instructional materials is as follows:
- Formation of teacher and administrator committee
- Review of current program in the appropriate content area
- Review of adoption options
- Establishment of district lens*
- Articulation of Saratoga High School teachers
- Pilot of materials
- Evaluation of materials by students and teachers
- Parent night for review and evaluation of materials
- Synthesis and analysis of evaluations
- Committee recommendation to the Board of Education
- Purchase of materials
- Professional development
*The district lens is a document that is created to help spell out the goals of our instructional program in each content area. Due to the interest in Math in our district, updates regarding the 2009-10 math instructional materials adoption were provided at Superintendent’s Advisory Council, SEF Board meetings, two Math Advisory Council Meetings, and a Materials Review Parent Night in January 2009 (note: all district parents were invited to this event via school listserv messages and their school newsletter). Our new Science programs have been chosen to accentuate our supplemental hands on Science programs at 4th and 5th grade, lab Science at RMS and Lawrence Hall of Science at K-5. | 
