NTTCA

North Texas Textbook Coordinators Association

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Q & A

(From the February 2007 NTTCA meeting in Richardson )

 

  • What is a bid package?

 

A)     Ancillaries that are submitted by the publisher as part of the adoption and guaranteed by TEA contract for the life of the adoption.  These items are reviewed by the TEA/SBOE Review committee.

 

  • Is it the district’s responsibility to submit PEIMS information (enrollment) to TEA for EMAT purposes or does that information get transferred automatically?

 

A)     Elementary numbers submitted in the District’s PEIMS numbers are moved up each year in EMAT.  You must physically change any increase in elementary enrollment for the present year, and manually input all secondary enrollment numbers.  In addition several subjects such as ESL, Music, Art and others must be entered into EMAT every year.

 

  • Where do we stand with legislature for money for adoptions after math?

 

A)     The legislature has suspended all proclamations after the elementary math adoption (Proclamation 2005), until further notice.

 

  • Is there a hard and fast rule (TEA) that states what account money collected for

lost textbooks is to be deposited to?

 

A)     No.  It should, however, be a separate account and used exclusively for textbooks.

 

  • Is there a way on EMAT to print an interim report for each campus in your district?

 

A)     No.  EMAT relates only with the district as a whole, and does not recognize individual campuses.

 

  • Do we coordinate with other districts to pick dates for ship dates from TEA?

 

A)     No.  We may only request a ship date for our Annual shipment, TEA makes the decision as to the actual date it is to arrive.  Supplemental shipments are requested by TEA to the depositories/publishers for either one or two weeks depending on the time of year.

 

  • Is there a form letter that we send to publishers after we have picked our adopted books?

 

A)     No.  There is a letter of agreement you can give to a publisher before choosing their book in order to know what to expect from them for the life of the adoption.  You can find a sample on the TCAT website by clicking on the “Important Messages” button.  Your districts selection is made when you order the book of choice in EMAT.

 

  • What report, if any, am I responsible for after books are received?

 

A)     None, unless it has been shipped through the “virtual depository” from another district.  If so, you will need to go into EMAT and receive the shipment so that it is taken off of the shipper’s inventory and added to yours.

 

  • PEIMS stands for what?

 

A)     Public Education Information Management System

 

  • When entering populations in EMAT, there is a PEIMS population reported – usually already entered.  Why is the PEIMS population almost always different from the number of students you actually show enrolled in the course/book title you are entering?

 

A)     EMAT does not actually get the enrollment numbers from PEIMS any longer.  The elementary numbers are simply moved up a grade each year.  The other numbers are reset to “0”.  All must be checked at the beginning and during the year when enrollment numbers change, and physically entered by you.

 

  • What’s the best software for inventory?

 

A)     Several were suggested at the meeting*, but there are more out there.  You might want to try doing a search on the internet, and write other districts to see what they are using and if it is working well:

*Hayes

*Follett

*Skyward

 

  • When a new campus opens, are publishers required to give you the full teacher resource package for all titles you select or is it optional?

 

A)     Teacher editions and resource packages are given by publishers based on the number of teachers using the materials, not by the number of campuses.  You will need to work with the publishers when opening a new campus to make sure you get the materials for any new teachers to the district, and with the other campuses to get materials moved to the new campus for transferring teachers.