Centinela District Gives Textbooks

Your article “Battle Between Supt. and Teachers Frames Centinela School Race” (Times, Nov. 3) reports that there is a textbook shortage in Centinela Valley (“ . . . teachers are unable to give each student a textbook to take home”). As the district’s textbook coordinator, I am obliged to comment.

Our district has spent close to $1 million during the last three years to implement the textbook program, a major goal of which is to provide a textbook for students in all of their classes. The program has been extremely successful in this regard.

In identified courses, we have acquired sets of texts to field test prior to reaching consensus on a text title for districtwide purchase. This practice, in the past, has been instructionally sound and cost effective. In those courses where students work from classroom texts, teachers have been issued ancillary and supplementary resources that provide students with relevant home assignments.

TRINA DELLA GATTA

district textbook coordinator Centinela Valley Union High School District