As reported in the Baltimore Sun, Heritage High School, a high school in Baltimore City that the School Board voted to close recently disposed of hundreds of its textbooks.

Despite pleas from teachers, community leaders and city councilmen, the Northeast Baltimore high school disposed of hundreds of books, which ranged from math and science textbooks more than a decade old to timeless classics. Some, teachers said, still had crisp pages and the new-book smell.

City school officials said schools recycle books annually if they are outdated or deemed in poor condition. For years, the district has worked with a vendor that has hauled off books or paid the district a resale value for them.

But the practice of purging the books, recently brought to light at Heritage, has outraged many who say they could be put to better use if they were recycled into the community.

MACo regularly seeks ways to improve cost efficiency in Maryland schools through building partnerships between local school boards and county government. Some examples of these partnerships include: sharing services and resources and using joint procurement to lower costs for county governments and local school boards.

For more information, read the full story from the Baltimore Sun here, and read this power point, Saving tax dollars and changing culture and white paper and previous posts on Conduit Street, County Guide to Shared Services in Local Government Report that features some joint programs in Howard County, Maryland.