The Iowa Department for the Blind (IDB) is working to update the MOU for School Districts. We are waiting for funding information.
At this point in time, IDB is not able to offer any cost sharing for the 2023/2024 school year. The Iowa Department for the Blind has submitted a request for state appropriations for accessible educational materials and we are continuing to provide information on the importance of the request for students and schools to the Legislature as they work through their budget process. Because we are unsure of a timeline or the outcome of the budget request, for now, school districts should expect to incur the full cost of the materials.
The Instructional Materials Center will continue to do all we can to keep the costs as low as possible for school districts. You can order all materials needed through Athena.
- If the book is available in our collection, we will circulate the book from our library at no cost to your student.
- If a book is not available in our collection, we do research to check if anyone in the U.S. has produced the materials. If the book has already been produced by a braille vendor, we request a quote. The good news in this case is they are produced at a fraction of the cost and the turnaround time is usually 1-2 months. The books are quoted as a price for the entire book and not a per page price.
- If the materials are not available and they need to be produced from scratch, we reach out to our available braille vendors for a quote. In this case, the vendor charges a price per page.
After we have received your order, an email will be sent to the person responsible for ordering and the person responsible for financial information. You will always know up front what the expected costs will be to your school district before production would begin.
The monthly IMC Webinar will be held tomorrow at 3:00pm over Zoom. IMC Staff will provide information on Athena including search tips and tricks.
For Registration and the Zoom link go to the IMC Zoom Hub
