S-784                 _______________________________________________

                                                   SENATE BILL NO. 5084

                        _______________________________________________

State of Washington                               51st Legislature                              1989 Regular Session

By Senators Smith, Lee and Johnson

Read first time 1/13/89 and referred to Committee on Education.

AN ACT Relating to the instructional materials committee; and amending RCW 28A.58.103.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

        Sec. 1.  Section 28A.58.103, chapter 223, Laws of 1969 ex. sess. as last amended by section 2, chapter 134, Laws of 1979 ex. sess. and RCW 28A.58.103 are each amended to read as follows:

          Every board of directors, unless otherwise specifically provided by law, shall:

          (1) Prepare, negotiate, set forth in writing and adopt, policy relative to the selection of instructional materials.  Such policy shall:

          (a) State the school district's goals and principles relative to instructional materials;

          (b) Delegate responsibility for the preparation and recommendation of teachers' reading lists and specify the procedures to be followed in the selection of all instructional materials including text books;

          (c) Establish an instructional materials committee to be appointed, with the approval of the school board, by the school district's chief administrative officer.  This committee shall consist of representative members of the district's professional staff, including representation from the district's curriculum development committees, and may include other persons, including persons not employed by the school district who are parents and guardians of students attending schools within the district, and, in the case of districts which operate elementary school(s) only, the educational service district superintendent, one of whose responsibilities shall be to assure the correlation of those elementary district adoptions with those of the high school district(s) which serve their children;

          (d) Provide for reasonable notice to parents and others of the opportunity to serve on the committee and terms of office for members of the instructional materials committee;

          (e) Provide a system for receiving, considering and acting upon written complaints regarding instructional materials used by the school district;

          (f) Provide free text books, supplies and other instructional materials to be loaned to the pupils of the school, when, in its judgment, the best interests of the district will be subserved thereby and prescribe rules and regulations to preserve such books, supplies and other instructional materials from unnecessary damage.

          Recommendation of instructional materials shall be by the district's instructional materials committee in accordance with district policy.  Approval shall be by the local school district's board of directors.

          Districts may pay the necessary travel and subsistence expenses for expert counsel from outside the district.  In addition, the committee's expenses incidental to visits to observe other districts' selection procedures may be reimbursed by the school district.

          Districts may, within limitations stated in board policy, use and experiment with instructional materials for a period of time before general adoption is formalized.

          Within the limitations of board policy, a school district's chief administrator may purchase instructional materials to meet deviant needs or rapidly changing circumstances.

          (2) Establish a depreciation scale for determining the value of texts which students wish to purchase.