Curriculum Adoption

S W School District Curriculum Adoption

Curriculum Design and Assessment

March 2012

S W School District Curriculum Adoption Though curriculum is often looked upon as just what is being taught in the classroom, since I have begun to study it, I have found it to be much more. Curriculum is the accumulation of learning experiences provided to all students, lessons intended explicitly for the classroom and lessons, both explicit and implied, meant for the course of living. The process of curriculum adoption, specifically new textbook adoption, within the S W School District begins with the district’s recognition of the need for new textbooks. The need for new textbooks arises about every seven years, budget permitting. The S W School District is a Program Improvement school district and must follow strict guidelines when adopting new textbooks. One of these guidelines is to hire a DAIT (District Assistance and Intervention Team) consulting group and follow their requirements for textbook adoption. After recognizing the need for new textbooks, the S W School District’s Curriculum Council creates a Textbook Adoption sub-committee. The sub-committee becomes familiar with grade-level standards, state blueprints and frameworks. “Although we are a Program Improvement school, I feel we have benefitted from the process as a whole. With the DAIT requirements in-hand, the sub-committee looks at the California State approved list of textbooks, making sure the textbooks correlate with the California State Standards, blueprints and frameworks they have studied. Our choices are the most up to date adopted textbooks. ( personal communication, March 19, 2012) After consulting all references, the sub-committee narrows the choices to about three to the remaining stakeholders. Where many districts are given a variety of publisher offerings, the S W School District’s choices were limited due to its Program Improvement status. The most recent English/Language Arts adoption was what is called an Option 2 Adoption. This means the adoption must be all inclusive; the core plan has to include an English Language Development (ELD) component and all of the components necessary for meeting the needs of all special needs groups versus separate adoptions. Teacher input is given within Grade-level selection committees. Meeting weekly, over a four to six week period, teachers review, evaluate and lastly rank the textbooks based upon their individual strengths and weaknesses. At the end of the period, teachers make their recommendation(s) to the Curriculum Council’s Textbook Adoption sub-committee. During the period when teachers are reviewing the textbooks, parents and community are also given their opportunity to review and evaluate the available textbooks. Parents are notified by mail that they can be part of the new textbook adoption process. The textbooks are displayed at the schools during regular hours, PTA meetings, School Site Council meetings and any other special committee meeting that might be being held during the process. Elementary and middle school students are not consulted in the curriculum/textbook adoption process, but their needs are considered throughout the entire process. After all recommendations made by teachers, parents and community members are submitted to the Curriculum Council committee, a final decision is made. Lastly, the recommendation is made to the School Board, who approves or disapproves the District’s choice. Following DAIT requirements, all teachers must be given intensive five day training. The training shows teachers how to master the use of the teacher’s edition textbook and its many ancillary products. In the latest English/Language Arts adoption, one grade-level adoption contained nearly 30 different components teachers needed to learn about. In addition, any teachers hired after the textbook training must also be trained as soon as the district can arrange it. The manner in which teachers measure effective implementation of curriculum vary and may include: gauging student progress throughout the lesson, analyzing independent practice through homework, and looking at quiz and test scores. In lieu of a common prep period, teachers meet Mondays to discuss successes, failures and outcomes of the previous week. District administrators look at test scores and district benchmarks to measure success. Although the curriculum/textbook adoption process follows a logical path, there are a couple places that can be improved. First, there is no effective pilot program in place. Only one elementary school piloted one of the latest recommended English/Language Arts textbooks. No other school volunteered to participate, so the only textbook piloted was recommended and later adopted. A pilot program should have comparative value. If only one textbook is going to be evaluated, there should be at least two schools evaluating it. With two schools, the group could contain a high performing and low performing school. After a year, the success rate of both schools can be measured against each other to see if it is consistent or not, possibly suggesting study. Also, since my district is very small, containing only eight schools, with just one middle school, piloting different textbooks is virtually impossible. Another weak point in the process is the parent involvement aspect. Very few parents actually inspect and even less, review the textbooks. Outside of the parents who go to PTA meetings, School Site Council meetings or are part of a special committee, no one sees them. The district should make greater efforts to get the parents to become involved. Taken as a whole, the S W School District curriculum adoption process makes informed and well-studied choices, benefitting all students. With the looming adoption of the Common Core Standards for the 2014-2015 school year, a whole new adoption process will soon be upon us. Hopefully, they can learn from any shortcomings and improve their process.