Information about the development of the USD 389 Curriculum Policy

The USD 389 Curriculum Committee reviewed many models and crucial elements in order to compose a continual working curriculum policy and process. Our curriculum policy was designed based off of three curriculum elements. (Not all from the same model.)

As you look at the USD 389 Curriculum Policy note it targets the following three key elements/processes.

• Alignment of standards
• Clarifying and unpacking the standards
• Staff Development to enhance teaching instruction

The following is our curriculum process that targets the needs of our district’s curriculum policy.

• The implementation of this curriculum process started with the alignment of the standards within the Math, Reading, Science, and Social Studies subject areas.
• Teachers have prioritized the standards by identifying them as mastery (blue), essential (green), or enhanced (yellow).
• This alignment of the standards can be seen on the colored subject/leveled state standards templates.
• This is a systematic process that basically eliminates gaps in teacher instruction as the standards are specifically targeted both horizontally and vertically within our staffs’ teaching instruction.
• After this process is complete we will then start the Clarifying and Unpacking process.
• This process will allow teachers to target, organize, and use a working curriculum document within their teaching instruction.
• Administrators, current teachers, and even new teachers will be able to find a standard/outcome within minutes and be able to see exact instructional strategies, student activities, and resources that can be used to teach the specific standard.
• For example, a teacher’s notebook would include a group of these unpacking documents in the color of blue, green, and yellow to declare their teaching instructional importance of mastery, essential, or enhanced.
• The last element of our curriculum process includes staff development.
• As we continue updating our curriculum working documents teachers/administrators/staff will prioritize areas of needed staff development for our entire district wide curriculum.
• One specific goal of our curriculum committee is to stay together and make our district curriculum a continual working progress and have useable document implementation.

What this curriculum policy/process provides for our district:

• Targets and ties teacher instruction to assessed standards
• Helps enhance teacher instruction for all teachers
• Provides assistance and consistency with new teachers coming in.
• Helps hold teachers accountable to good quality instruction
• Provides a working documentation tool to be easily accessible and updated.

Curriculum Committee:

Administrators: Randy Corns, Rob Leis, Tony Helfridge

Certified Staff: Stacy Coulter, Rosemary Mc Guire, Cindy Schwartz, Stacey Hart, Faith Rucker, Sheila Koup, Jennifer Richardson, and Tony Denner