New York State guidelines require that school districts provide textbooks to their residents who attend non-public schools.

According to New York State law, students attending nonpublic schools are entitled to borrow the textbooks they use in their private school from the school district where they reside. The administration of this system by individual school districts, however, has been cumbersome for nonpublic schools whose students typically come from different districts: local school districts each have a variety of procedures and policies concerning order forms, eligibility of books, pick-up and return policies, and book accountability.

In the school year 2010-2011, 51 of the 56 school districts in Nassau County elected to provide books to students attending close to 100 participating nonpublic schools through the centralized distribution system of the Nassau County Textbook Loan Program. Based on this participation, last year we distributed textbooks to about 18,000 students. This coordination is working well for all parties involved — the private schools, the public school districts, and the nonpublic school parents who are no longer required to pick up and return their books.