LUMBERTON, NC (WBTW) – Robeson County School board members spent part of Tuesday’s meeting viewing the work of its young robotics team. Later on, they made a decision they hope will foster even more success.

At-Large board member and Curriculum Chair Brian Freeman said giving students the right tools will produce the right results.

“One of the things we’ve been lacking so long is textbooks for our students, and also the appropriate resources for our teachers,” Freeman said.

Freeman updated his fellow board members Tuesday night on the growing need to update textbooks and other curriculum resources. He said some schools had not updated textbooks in years, and in some cases decades.

Freeman and his staff studied the needs of schools across the district, and what could be done to meet those needs. After looking at four different textbook companies, the board made its final decision Tuesday.

Freeman said the plan will make standards across the district more consistent.

“It’s more than just adopting textbooks,” Freeman said after the vote. “It’s adopting a core instructional program that every student in Robeson County will have the same materials in reading, math, social studies, and science, so we could streamline education across the country.”

Freeman said the plan will also include textbooks that students can take home with them each night, and access to online collaboration like Google Classrooms, which students will likely see more often in the future.