CLI Update

It's true that I haven't updated my blog as often as I should. In a way, it's nice to have time to review the experience of the last school year (concerning curriculum work) and actually have time to reflect on the "whole" versus just discrete pieces.

In March of 2009, I was asked to work part-time in the curriculum office and still work the remaining hours as an assistant principal in the high school. The curriculum work was way behind schedule in keeping up with the new graduation requirements. There was no formal curriculum documents for World History (being taught for the first time to incoming juniors in the fall), Government, Economics, or any of the math options (Algebra, Advanced Algebra, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, etc.), chemistry and physics One wonders, just how did this happen? Why was so little emphasis given to secondary?

I have a lot of theories about this. To begin with, the curriculum director is from an elementary background and, honestly, prefers that level. Secondly, the curriculum department consists of a curriculum director and an assistant superintendent for instruction. There are some auxillary folks that deal with testing, technology, and professional development. However, there are not enough worker ants to actually get the nitty-gritty documents prepared and focused. One would think in a district of over 10,000 students, the curriculum department would certainly be larger. Why our students do so well academically is purely based on luck. We are lucky to have involved parents that value education. We're lucky, for the most part, that our teachers teach fairly well and believe in professional learning communities that focus on instruction. We're lucky that our students are disciplined and focused. What happens when our luck runs low and our students/teachers/parents become less focused? We've not prepared or enforced a strict curriculum that all teachers abide by. And, it is a complete disaster for a new teacher to understand what is expected of them. It is difficult, at best, to track and remediate weaknesses when common assessments are not based on specific instruction aligned to the benchmarks.

There was a hitch to the new responsibilities that I accepted. In the end of March I was given all the secondary work (with only 3 months to work on it). The superintendent promised me and my principal that the assignment would only last through that school year (no summer work either). Well, as you might expect, jockeying between the two assignments was difficult at best. The only work that got completed was the World History, the Algebra, and the Advanced Algebra. The curriculum director handled chemistry and physics. The physics did get completed and chemistry was well on it's way. I did feel that jockeying myself between the two positions did not provide justice to either.

There simply wasn't enough of me to go around. The staff at school was disappointed that I wasn't in the building when they wanted something from me. My counterparts in administration, had to pick up some extra duties and weren't happy with that aspect. I felt left out of many of the administrative conversations that happened when I wasn't there and not filled in on. The disconnect was tangible. From the curriculum side, the process was so new to me and provided no training. When I asked for a template, I was told to do whatever I thought was best. If you've never done the work before, how do you know what is "best"? Anyway, it took me about two weeks just to figure out how to best approach a single topic, let alone work on the others. Step number one... prioritize. Since the new advanced algebra and the new world history had to be in place by fall, I decided to start there.

Step number two... collaborate and delegate. Since the district had already agreed to pay a math teacher to write math curriculum, I decided to begin there. I thought this was a poor move for the district. When you pay one teacher to write curriculum, others do not want to work for free. Unfortunately, this was something I couldn't change and had to tactfully work around. Obviously, if I took over the work she would make less money which would not endear me to her or utilize her expertise. So, we met and I tried to convince her that the work was so encompassing that if she continued to do it alone, she wouldn't have a life outside school at all and there would be little, if any, buy in from the other teachers and other high schools. She agreed, although hesitantly at first. Department heads from all three high schools met to hash out the Advanced Algebra course with the new requirements. She had a template set with the Algebra work she completed and the department heads agreed to follow suit. In one day, they completed the same work it would have taken her weeks (and family time) to complete since she had been doing the curriculum work outside her full-time assignment. Hence, everyone left the room weary but together on the curriculum with complete buy-in to spread in their respective schools. Having the "right" people at the table makes all the difference in world.

Step number three.... Have the right people do the work. This truly is a key point. Knowing who the right people are can be tricky. I decided to take on the World History course. Now, keep in mind that I'm a math and science major. This topic was completely out of my realm of expertise. What I learned is that if you have the right folks involved in the work, I don't need to be the expert - just a facilitator. So, I had some preparation work to do ahead of time. I needed to have a guide of benchmarks and clarifications to work with. I needed a template to keep the work focused. And, we needed a text (or several texts) to use as reference that closely paralleled the benchmarks and provided teachers with tools. Lucky for me, the teachers had already selected the text of choice. I'm not sure which comes first, the chicken or the egg. Selecting the text first makes the work easier, but not always better as the alignment to the benchmarks gets glossed over. If you do the alignment first, the process may take forever with the number of texts available. Be that as it may, since the text was already selected, we worked from that starting point.

I struggled with a format that was teacher friendly and that teachers would actually "use". The worst case scenario is writing a document that no one uses. Things we considered were pacing, utilizing the benchmarks and clarifications (more user friendly than the actual benchmarks), essential questions, which ones were state assessed and which were class assessed, and what we wanted the learner to be able to know at the end of each chapter/section (learner outcomes) that we would base the common assessments on in the classroom to assess the validity of the curriculum document. I knew the person from my school who had a desire to do the work and the professional expertise. I did not know the staff from the other buildings as well. I got recommendations from the principals of the other buildings and then began the begging. Two were onboard immediately. I let them convince the third individual we had to have her join the process. She has many obligations both at school and at home as was fearful of taking on any more commitments - totally understandable. Those that "do" get hit upon most of the time until they completely burn out. Sad, but true.

With the team in place, the materials in place, the format agreed upon, we needed to be focused in our work. I agreed to type the document in the proper format. They focused their attention on learner outcomes and essential questions and the pacing. We met as a group three times for three full days away from the individual high schools. They collaborated wonderfully. We met twice in April (each time leaving with assignments to get back to me) and once in May to finalize. We had to work around spring break, AP exams, end of the marking period grading, etc. but finished the document before school ended. Professional development is scheduled when teachers resume in August.

The one shortcoming I can see now that the work is mostly completed is... as you might expect.... time. The document ended up about 130 pages in total. That's a lot of typing that I did myself. In hindsight, I should have farmed that out to a secretary. However, I wanted responsibility to follow this first attempt all the way through including the format. In the beginning, I changed the format three times before I had it fine-tuned and user friendly. It was more a process for me as I struggled with what necessary points needed to be included. The clarification document I hunted down from the state (which wasn't even published at the time) was a godsend! The benchmarks are confusing and very difficult to understand. Why the state writes them this way is certainly a mystery. Even the teachers of the content can't understand what is being asked of them. It's no wonder why the learner outcomes differ so much. The state asks college professors to write them, then they themselves must determine the clarifications. The process is redundant and ridiculous.

Anyway, now I'm in the process of planning the professional development for all teachers planning on teaching the World History course this school year and explaining the document. I haven't a specific plan yet and have the month of August to plan it. I know I want them to get used to the technology involved and planned for in the curriculum. I know I want them to have experience in writing (and sharing) lesson plans using that technology. I know that they must experience the same learning that students are expected - it must be experiential. I know I do not plan on much, if any, lecture time from me. Lastly, those that worked on the curriculum must be involved in leading the PD. Teachers learn best from other teachers. The participants MUST leave with something they can immediately use in the classroom.

So, as you can see, there is still lots of work to be done. We have, hopefully, good PD to prepare, we have common assessments to write, we have data to collect from the assessments to adjust the pacing and content, and we will have to constantly tweak to get better results. I'll keep the blog posted. As for me, it's been a growing process. I didn't have the best experience caught between two different positions, but I did learn and evolve.

I definitely had some time management issues getting all the teacher evaluations completely (new process this year) for 19 teachers, creating a master schedule for teaching assignments, creating rubrics for a counselor evaluation tool, working on an administrator's evaluation tool, and all the other responsibilities that generally fall at the end of the school year. I wish I could have done more on the curriculum, but I simply ran out of time. It will be interesting to see what Central Office decides about next year. Will I still be split or will the superintendent hold on to the promise he made even though so much of the work needs to be completed asap? Obviously, the district (like so many across the state) will not be hiring into the curriculum department without eliminating somewhere else. Money is tight. My principal wants me in the building (he's been vocal about that). Curriculum director wants me in Central Office. As for me, I like the work in both but the division is difficult. Time will tell.