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Curriculum Revision and Review Process

The team in C & I is consistently inspired and driven by the Board of Education's Strategic Question for Teaching and Learning:

Strategic Question 2: Teaching & Learning

"How can the District ensure that all students think deeply and creatively, support their thinking, apply problem-solving skills, work collaboratively, and actively participate in their learning as they acquire content knowledge?"

Adopted November 11, 2009
Revised December 15, 2021

In order to actively work to ensure this question is actualized, our team of professional developers works with teachers throughout the grade levels and departments to review and assess the efficacy of their curriculum. Each department within the school district is in one of the four stages of our CCSD Curriculum Cycle (shown below). We are constantly striving to meet the needs of our students and our ever changing society. Through constant evaluation and reevaluation, we can ensure that our curriculum, in all areas, is modern, responsive and meeting the needs of our students.

CCSD Curriculum Cycle

Evaluate

In this stage, the focus is on reviewing, eliciting feedback, and examining the current curriculum in place. It involves questioning whether the current curriculum meets the needs of the students, the community, and modern society. The use of both quantitative and qualitative data is essential in this process. A committee of teachers, possibly students, and administrators will be a part of this stage.

Respond

Decisions are made based on the evaluation to improve the current curriculum or to write or choose a new one. If teachers are writing a new curriculum, they will be lead by a team of veteran teachers, professional developers and/or administrators. If they are choosing a new curriculum, an evaluation process is established and carried out with a team of teachers, administrators and professional developers.

Prepare

This is the stage of learning. Based on the decisions made in the previous stage, what training, professional development, content acquisition, practice, etcetera do individuals, a team, or department need to successfully implement the new changes will be carried out. Coaching and support is a vital part of this process and can be stretched over several years.

Implement

A multi-year stage, the new curriculum is implemented, while teachers receiving coaching and support along the way. Practices are revised, skills improved, and units are revised and rewritten. Teams of teachers, administrators and professional developers work together in this phase of the process.

CCSD Curriculum Cycle
Infographic of the CCSD Curriculum Cycle

Guidelines for Curriculum Selection

Presented at the September 2022 Board of Education meeting, the following information is provided to share guidelines for curriculum review and selection.

  1. Purpose: Materials are chosen that best meet the needs and interests of students as they meet the instructional objectives and requirements of the course/subject.

  2. Scholarship:  To what extent does the source maintain the highest possible standards of accuracy, authoritativeness, and academic merit? 

  3. Perspective:  It is a basic objective of the individual/team to select materials representing various points of view concerning problems and issues of our times - international, national and local as as well as authorship, subject-matter and characters.

  4. Language: The use of occasional non-conventional language or realistic incidents in portraying real-life situations does not automatically disqualify books and other materials of proven value.

  5. Maturity: The maturity level, age, emotional and academic readiness of students will influence the selection of materials. 

  6. Choice: The ability of students to choose (by course, or by curricular materials) will be considered when selecting materials. 

  7. Literary Merit: The material provides an opportunity to learn more about how literary techniques (such as narrative voice, structure, and style) enrich a text; good literary writing is about how a text says something, as much as it is about what it says.

Curriculum Selection Matrix

This matrix outlines the curriculum selection process based on the type of material/resource and how the material will be used.