Warren Consolidated Schools of Warren, MI, declares on its website a simple, yet powerful motto: Where Children Succeed. 16 of Warren Consolidated’s 25 schools have been awarded the Michigan Blue Ribbon Exemplary School Award, while two are national blue ribbon schools.
Recently the district adopted a program to help support its motto - and its educational mission. Follett Software Company’s Destiny® Textbook Manager™ textbook tracking software provides districts with a way to circulate and track instructional materials andensure every student has the materials they need -- while controlling textbook costs.
“The perils of K-12 education funding require districts to have in place an effective textbook management solution,” said Christine Lewis, mathematics and music content specialist for Warren Consolidated Schools."It was readily apparent to our board that the financial layout was worth it since we look to quickly recoup our investment that otherwise would have been lost or unnecessarily duplicated.”
Destiny Textbook Manager allows districts to barcode and track every textbook, by buildings, teachers and students. Lewis said Warren’s barcoding efforts exceeded expectations.
“We projected to barcode 90,000 textbooks over a period of several days,” said Lewis, whose district has 15,600 students. “It turned out to be 149,000 books, but all of our organization and pre-planning paid off as with four teams, each with a Follett leader, we were able to barcode 50 percent more books in less time than we originally anticipated it would take for 90,000.”
By early December, Destiny Textbook Manager will also be rolled out to all schools in the 26,000-student Springfield (Mass.) Public Schools district. According to Gladys Franco, supervisor of leadership development, her district recognized the number of benefits a textbook management solution brings.
“Even though budgets are tight, we felt this was an important investment to make that in the end will help us save money and better manage our inventory of textbooks, plus allow us to be more organized and efficient,” said Franco, who added that textbooks at Springfield will now be viewed as a “district-wide resource,” to be transferred where needed throughout the 51 district schools.
Destiny® Textbook Manager™ has been implemented by nearly 12,000 schools nationally.
