The social studies department is currently attempting to renew its textbooks to an updated version that complies with the current educational standards and have access to helpful resources, social studies department co-lead Paul Harrison said.
Most social studies department textbooks are outdated by around 15 to 20 years after publishing, and do not reflect recent developments and changes, Harrison said. The problem worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused book renewal to be pushed back because it was hard to test potential new books while teaching a class remotely, he said.
“We still don’t have a guarantee from the district that we’re going to be able to update our books,” Harrison said. “Hopefully we’re going to pilot before this semester ends, and hopefully be able to order some textbooks.”
There is a current initiative to pilot books for the remainder of the school year, which would consist of using a new book and using it to teach one unit or a few lessons to decide if the teachers like it or not, Harrison stated.
The matter is more urgent because the textbooks in the department are beginning to tear, sometimes requiring the school to buy new copies of old versions of the textbook instead of spending that money on new, up-to-date books, Harrison added.
“A lot of the AP classes have changed their curriculum, and our textbooks don’t align with those new curriculums,” Harrison said. “ And even though we’re replacing older versions, why don’t we just buy entirely new updated versions?”
For AP psychology, the College Board is making changes to the exam and to the curriculum next year, AP psychology teacher Kathryn Peterson said. Therefore, AP psychology teachers may need to wait longer for the new College Board curriculum to roll out before they can buy a new textbook that aligns with the new curriculum, she said.
“Right now, the AP Psychology teachers are in communication with textbook publishers to see if we would be able to get supplemental resources as College Board is making changes,” Peterson said. “It is possible we’ll be able to adopt a new AP psychology textbook next year, even though the College Board is not making those changes until the year after, but part of it depends on what’s happening with the publishers right now.”
At the beginning of the year, Peterson and AP psychology teacher Danilo Escobar were potentially in a situation where they would lose access to resources, and their students would lose access to resources like AP classroom because the textbooks were so outdated that the College Board refused to approve them to teach an AP class, AP psychology teacher Lauren Byler-Garcia said.
“The problem is a lot of the textbooks come with resources for teachers and testing software for teachers like test banks,” Byler-Garcia said. “They are so out-of-date that if my computer were to stop working, I wouldn’t be able to access the online textbook resources.”
The social studies department seems to be the department that’s kind of the most behind out of all the other departments at MHS, Byler-Garcia said.
“It is in the best interest of the students that we get new textbooks and materials,” Harrison said. “This isn’t just about the teacher; it is really about the students. It would be negligent of us if we did not get new textbooks for the students.”