All you have to do is ask, then ask again.

On the homeschool website my hubby saw that some schools will let you borrow text books.  I called what would be our daughters public middle school and asked if I could borrow the same books they use in the classroom.  It took some haggling, some phone calls and a few weeks to get some answers. In the end the answer was no. They didn't have any extra books to loan out to me.  They said they were even short handed.
I called another middle school. I explained my situation and the lady I spoke with happily let me come by to pic up a English book and a Science book. They too, were low on the other books, math and history. However, she did let me know what books they use for math and history.
While there I asked her about the school which is well known for their Science program. She said they have a waiting list for students to get into that school.  I also asked her, out of curiosity, how many students were in each class.  She stated, no less than 30.