New textbook management system saves District 202 more than $500,000 in first year
District 202 saved hundreds of thousands of dollars this past school year through the newly adopted Destiny Textbook Manager system.
The Destiny Textbook Manager allows for a more streamlined inventory and tracking system of all District 202 textbooks, teacher textbooks and resource materials.
"The system helps to eliminate over-ordering and stockpiling of books and resource materials," said Linda Casey, District 202's Director of Instructional Technology and Media. "It also reduces replacement costs by being able to transfer textbooks from one campus to another."
Officials conservatively estimate that the system has saved the district at least $500,000.
Before the system was adopted at the start of the 2008-2009 school year, staff at each of District 202's 30 schools used their own method for tracking these materials. Some school staffers tracked by hand, others used a barcode system and some used a spreadsheet.
"We needed to do something more, especially with the number of schools in the district," Casey said.
When the program was implemented last fall, it coincided with the adoption of the PreK-12 Math curriculum. As Math resources were purchased to support the adopted curriculum, they were bar coded and inventoried using the Destiny Textbook Manager system.
The Destiny Textbook Manager uses a web based browser to track and inventory all of the district's textbooks and materials, greatly helping to streamline the ordering and distribution processes.
The system allows an administrator at one school to see how many extra copies of a specific textbook are available throughout the district, before purchasing more.
This year, more textbooks will be inventoried and added when the Board of Education adopts the new PreK-12 Science curriculum.
As each curriculum subject area is adopted, the appropriate textbooks will be inventoried into the system. At the high school level, all textbooks and resources will be bar coded before the schedule of adoptions to allow the district to better predict purchase orders.
"After three years, with projected school enrollment, we'll be able to better forecast needs," Casey said.
"This will allow the district to ensure that students will have access to the textbooks they need, when they need them, while at the same time saving our taxpayers a tremendous amount of money," she said.