New Scope and Sequence is integral to the Strategic Plan

 

Teachers have been integral in the creation and implementation of the Strategic Plan since its start in 2018-19. And now all that hard work is really coming to fruition with the launch of the new scope and sequence next school year.

Creating a common scope and sequence is an integral piece of the Strategic Plan (Initiative 1a), especially to achieve the long term outcome of reducing disparities in achievement, which have persisted in BVSD, despite the incredible teachers that the district has.

“If we still have an achievement gap after 20 years, it's not because our teachers have failed, it’s because we have failed to give them the support in terms of the systems and structures that allow them to focus on the right work with their kids,” said Area Superintendent Sam Messier.

A teacher survey found that many teachers were spending 10-15 hours a week curating resources, combing through activities and texts. 

“That’s time we (BVSD) should be helping them with,” said Messier. “Teachers can then focus on customizing that for kids. I believe the scope and sequence is a critical foundational component to support the needs of our kids and our teachers.”

A common scope and sequence doesn’t mean being in lockstep
BVSD doesn’t want to be a district that dictates that everyone must be on the same page on the same day and that is not the aim of this new scope and sequence. Teachers need the flexibility and discretion to adapt the day to day lessons for the strengths and needs of their students. 

Instead teachers and district staff have worked collaboratively over the past year to decide the most important standards to teach and what order to teach them. 

“We think about that order at the unit level. That we do this unit first and we really make sure we focus on these specific prioritized standards for that unit and then we move on to the next unit. We make sure that kids have actually mastered the things from that first unit and if they haven’t we make sure those kids have additional experiences that help them master those standards as we move into the next unit,” said Messier.  

Teacher feedback has been, and will continue to be, integral
Every step of the way teachers have been involved. There were several staff sessions in Spring 2019 during the general strategic plan planning, as well as teacher involvement in the Community Equity Summit around standards. 110 educators were part of the standards prioritization groups, 55 educators on the research task force and 155 educators worked on unit development in the summer of 2020.

All teachers will soon be invited to participate in more unit development in the summer of 2021.

In the middle of a pandemic, it has been difficult to strike the right balance in asking too much of teachers, who have been working immensely hard with the current needs of their students, to also provide feedback on the standards and unit planning.

“We hear that and have tried to minimize the impact, but we really need teacher voice in this,” emphasized Messier. “ If we’re going to build tools for teachers to use, teachers have to be involved in building them.”

All teachers will soon be invited to participate in unit development in summer 2021 and the team wants more educators to get involved in the process.

“The Year at a Glance is just a start,” said Kristin Donley, BVSD STEM Director. “ Teachers then take it to the field, test it and give feedback. We’ve never connected our resources in different areas; we want to leverage resources across contents in a consistent way.”

A sense of urgency- Looking ahead to 2021
There is a sense of urgency in having these systems and structures complete by next school year. One of the advantages of having a common scope and sequence is that it’ll make it easier to align intervention tools in the fall. Students will come back in the fall having gone through a lot of change, and the systems need to be prepared to support all students.

“I think we have to be realistic that some of our students are going to have some gaps in their learning and are going to need some intervention in order to make up those gaps so they can stay on pace with grade level content,” said Messier.

What standards are prioritized and why
Teachers can’t possibly focus on all the standards. 110 educators were brought in to look at the 2020 Colorado Academic Standards and then, by using the criteria of leverage, continuity and relevance, held up the most important standards.

“When you go deep and in depth with those prioritized standards you’ll use the supporting standards to hold them up,” says Jennifer Garfield, Director of Curriculum and Standards.

Educators who worked on unit development over the summer of 2020 took the work from the standards prioritization and bundled them into theme/units that were then put together in a sequence and a pacing for how long it will take to teach them.

Building continuity through integration of contents
Integration of units across content areas and prioritizing standards that appeared in multiple contents were top priorities of educators and district leaders. Teams started by integrating science and social studies areas as much as possible and then layering language arts, reading/writing and math.

“Content and literacy when brought together really support language development and so opportunities to connect content in meaningful ways with the reading units are built into the year at a glance,” said Shannon Gamble, BVSD Reading Coordinator.

Providing continuity across for the day for language learners is especially important, shared Julie Benmellah, BVSD CLDE Coordinator. 

“We aren’t just readers for 45 minutes a day, or only learning language for a part of the day. We are learning and strengthening those skills across the day. It is important to build opportunities for that constant connection so that we are building up the vocabulary and the interconnected language that students will be able to use throughout the day,” said Benmellah.

Writing and reading units were closely aligned so that, for example, when students are reading informative texts in reading they’ll also be learning about writing informative texts during writing time. And writing standards will be integrated as part of the science and social studies units so that way students will be able to connect to the other projects occurring in those content areas. 

Messier is optimistic the district and educator work on the scope and sequence and unit development will have a positive impact on the achievement gap.

“We are building every set of tools and resources through the lens of this has to be good for our CLDE students. That being at the core of what we’re doing and putting this in the hands of our amazing teachers, we will make amazing outcomes for our kids. If any district can close the achievement gap for kids, it's BVSD. That’s the most exciting thing about this.”