Students who open up their textbooks and note that they were copyrighted in 1991 should not fear that Bear Creek is way behind in the times. "We're in the process of going through the textbook replacing process," Principal Jeff Thompson said. "Over the next three to five years we will have basically all new books in core classes." The state allots $19 per student each year for textbooks. Bill Palmer, Administrative Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, said California's textbook funding was "dreadfully low" compared to other states, but legislation approved last year has given all California schools $43 more per student for four years. The 1999-2000 school year is the second year that California school districts have received the exra $43 per student. "We're trying to carch up where we'd been lacking," Palmer said. "We hope the money doesn't run out before we get all the textbooks we need. We're pretty optimistic that the four main content areas will have new textbooks." The money from the legislation can only go toward science, social science, language arts, and math textbooks. Foreign language textbooks are not covered. "Last year, Spanish [textbooks] were replaced," Thompson said. "This year, French and German were replaced at site expense." "I think it's great that we get new [French textbooks], but I think it would be great if we could get new books for everything," junior Diana Przybyla said. "I think we should use more money on textbooks and less money on other programs that don't help all the students because textbooks can help all students." Once the money is available, textbooks are reviewed to make srue they align with state standards. Textbooks are not bought without being reviewed and selected. "We just ordered replacement biology, earth physical science, U.S. government, and economics books for the four high schools," Thompson said. "It was a phenomenol amount of money: about $650,000 for those textbooks in four high schools." "Getting better textbooks will benefit the school," junior Amanda Mize said. "The old textbooks are boring and outdated, so students don't always want to read them. Then they get bad grades. New textbooks that are up-to-date may be more interesting. If they're more interesting, more students might read them and get better grades, and Bear Creek could get a better ranking." One textbooks have been replaced, the titles of obsolete textbooks are taken to the board and they approve to get rid of them, Supervisor of Instructional Media Services Joyce Nagata said. Nagata contacts a non-profit organization in Sacramento called The Education and Literacy Resource Connection. "[They try] to put books in the hands of all people in California," Nagata said. "It's a really good program and we've had a lot of success with them." The organization picks up textbooks and issues points in exchange that can be used to get other used textbooks if a district needs to replace a set and does not have the money to buy brand new ones.