District recommends McGraw Hill Modern Business Math for business-math courses

Snohomish — District staff recommended on March 26 that the board consider purchasing Modern Business Math (McGraw Hill, 2024) as the district’s business-math curriculum for the roughly 150 students enrolled across three high schools.

Brian Burton (role/title not specified) told the board that the business-math adoption committee reviewed three options and found two to be more appropriate for community-college students rather than high-school learners. The committee selected McGraw Hill’s Modern Business Math because staff said it matched district standards, offered appropriate reading levels, and provided digital accessibility features (text-to-speech and multi-language translation) and Canvas integration for student access.

Why it matters: Business math serves a modest cohort (about 150 students districtwide) at Glacier Peak and the district’s comprehensive high schools. Staff emphasized that outdated textbooks (some 11 to 19 years old) contained obsolete examples and tax references, and that the new online material updates annually for tax and financial-law changes — an advantage for accuracy in financial instruction.

Staff described pilot feedback as generally positive from students, parents and teachers. The instructional materials committee voted unanimously to recommend purchase; staff presented a price estimate to the board in the meeting packet but the board did not take a formal purchase vote on March 26.

Implementation notes included online subscription advantages (annual updates to reflect changes in tax and financial rules), editable online lessons and assessments, and integrated accessibility features. Staff said teacher training with McGraw Hill had already been arranged and piloting produced favorable classroom reviews.