Board discusses renewing Beyond Textbooks partnership with Vail; staff cites student-growth data

District administrators recommended the board renew the intergovernmental agreement with Vail School District to continue access to the Beyond Textbooks (BT) platform, which staff said has been in use since 2017 and correlates with improved assessment outcomes.

Dr. Jay (Speaker 2) told the board the partnership has run nearly nine years and that staff saw higher scores in years the district used BT. "There’s clear data points that show that the years in which we partnered with the Vail School District, our scores and our letter grades have been very strong," he said. He described BT as a vetted resource library and training provider and noted Vail offers mapping and training that can be used down to second grade.

Board members sought clarity about how BT meshes with district textbook adoptions at the elementary level. Staff answered that Beyond Textbooks supplements textbooks and that principals and teachers use BT with grade-level team planning and that the district retains consumables and textbook materials where needed. Classroom teachers and principals will continue to use Reveal Math and other adopted materials; BT provides additional scope, sequence and reteach resources and external training opportunities.

Board members generally supported the renewal; staff described next steps for continued fidelity, training and elementary rollout. No formal vote to commit expenditure details was recorded in this discussion; staff indicated they would continue implementation and training and could provide further details.

The board asked staff to return with implementation specifics for elementary grades and to continue communicating training opportunities.