“When Rene Neff teaches math to her fifth-grade class, every lesson is an exercise in creativity on her part.Starting with a textbook used at the South Whidbey Intermediate School for the past seven years, Neff spends hours every week culling through a half-dozen other workbooks and math texts to put together worksheets, homework assignments and in-class exercises that will give her students a full understanding of fractions, division, multiplication and other mathematical disciplines.Next year, Neff will get those hours of math book surfing back when her school, along with the South Whidbey Primary School and Langley Middle School, purchases at least $40,000 in new math books. For the past few months, school staff members and students have been evaluating several new math curricula that will give teachers all the tools they need to help their students meet state math standards. Neff said she is ready for a change.It’s been really frustrating for teachers, she said of the schools’ outdated math materials.When the schools started their search for a new math curriculum last year, three learning systems were up for consideration: Trail Blazers, Investigations and Connected Math. LMS teachers and administrators have already chosen Connected Math as the school’s curriculum of the future. Staff, administrators and students at the primary and intermediate schools are considering Trail Blazers and Investigations, having ruled out Connected Math as an option.Now it’s time for parents to get involved in the selection process. The South Whidbey School District will hold an open house on Feb. 1 at which school administrators hope parents of students can help them make a choice. Tim Gordon, assistant principal at Langley Middle School, said all three curricula will be on display at the event. Even though his school has made its curriculum choice, he said LMS parents should have a look at the materials. After all, their children’s success rides on the effectiveness of these math books.They are aimed at getting kids ready for the WASLs (Washington Assessment of Student Learning), Gordon said.Any WASL boost the students can get will be welcome. Scores returned last week for the 2000 test showed that only one-third of South Whidbey fourth, seventh and 10th graders met the test standards in mathematics, reading, writing and listening.Doug Hale, principal at South Whidbey Intermediate School, said having a consistent math program from grade to grade will help students learn faster and retain more of what they learn. The current curriculum has holes in it, he said.It’s not uniform, Hale said. Rene Neff’s students have been working with some advance copies of Trail Blazers for the past few weeks. She said that curriculum is her personal choice because it emphasizes paper-and-pencil work and regular skill reviews. Without those reviews, students can forget how to do some of the math they learned at the beginning of the school year.You get to the end of the year and they’ve forgotten how to use that skill, Neff said.Principal Hale said the school board has committed to fully funding the new math curricula, even if the price exceeds the $40,000 budgeted for math materials last year. The board will adopt the curricula recommended by school staff at its April 23 meeting. The district changes its math curricula every seven years. “