The Lawrence school district will spend nearly $250,000 for new books and other materials, as the district moves forward with its plans for creating middle schools and four-year high schools.

Monday night, members of the Lawrence school board approved spending $249,767 on textbooks and other resources entering the 2011-12 school year.

The district typically wouldn’t spend that much on such resources, but the coming year is considered unusual because of the district’s implementation of its Redesigning for Student Success plan, said Kim Bodensteiner, chief academic officer. Under the plan, elementary schools will be for grades K-5; middle schools will be for grades 6-8; and high schools will be for grades 9-12.

Then again, the district spent even more for the past academic year, as it implemented its new Math Expressions curriculum in all elementary schools.

“These purchases will be viable resources for many years,” Bodensteiner said.

In other action, board members agreed to:

• Hire contractors to add doors in the cafeteria at Free State High School, for $22,620; add a wall separating what had been this year’s sixth-grade pod into two classrooms for the next school year at Broken Arrow School, for $12,087; and knock down a wall to expand the computer lab at Langston Hughes School, for $3,473.

• Buy new cafeteria equipment, for $109,870, for use at both high schools.

• Buy new lockers, for $58,107, at Lawrence High School: 252 for use in hallways and another 414 for use in physical education classes. New lockers for Free State already have been approved and are on order: $45,408 for 288 additional hall lockers.