1. a. Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, the Department of Education shall coordinate the sharing of textbooks among school districts by creating a Statewide textbook bank. The Department of Education shall create and maintain a database of all textbooks that will be discarded by each school district. The textbook bank database shall be made available on the Department of Education’s website and a list of all available textbooks shall be sent to each school district periodically.

b. Each school district shall notify the Department of Education of any textbooks the district intends to discard. The Department of Education shall within 14 days of receiving notification from the school district of the intent to dispose of the textbooks, list the textbooks in the textbook bank database. School districts shall retain the textbooks to be discarded for a period of 120 days after the district has notified the Department of Education.

c. Districts acquiring textbooks using the textbook bank database are responsible for all costs associated with receiving them from the donating district.

d. The department shall make the textbook bank database available for use by nonpublic schools.

L.2002,c.98,s.1.