by Scott Jentsch

The administration and staff members presented the proposed new English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum at the March 28, 2022 School Board meeting. A slide presentation was given and personal comments from various staff members accented their desire to have the School District adopt this new curriculum at the April 11, 2022 School Board meeting. That meeting is tonight.

The curriculum materials were made available to School Board members and the public, with staff members available to answer questions. I viewed the materials and asked quite a few questions of the administration members in attendance, including Brady Reinke (Director of Elementary Teaching & Learning), Kelli Kwiatkowski (Director of Secondary Teaching & Learning), and Dr. Kellie Sanders (Chief Academic Officer).

Since I am not a teacher, I approached this session from the viewpoint of a parent. However, I am very familiar with education issues as a result of being married to a classroom teacher, and counting many teachers and educators as family and friends.

If you recall from my comments at that time, I came away from the March 28, 2022 meeting with skepticism due to the fact that I heard only positive comments, but nothing that spoke to the challenges that this new curriculum might present to our teachers and our students. That skepticism was balanced by the fact that some of the staff members that were so enthusiastic were teachers that my children have had in the past. These are people that I hold in high regard, so their opinion carries a lot of weight, but my questions remained.

I am happy to report that what I saw and heard gave me the impression that this will be a good thing for the students of our School District. The staff answered my questions patiently and completely, and they were able to convey the challenges that they know exist, but were still confident that the end result will be positive for our students.

The books that I reviewed, while reminiscent of the dreaded workbooks that created busywork for students in the past, are intended primarily as an in-class tool. There are explanatory pages for parents so that they may engage with their students about each lesson.

I had seen comments online about the challenges that other School Districts faced when implementing this curriculum, and asked about some of those issues. The emphasis on phonics and how that affects fluency (reading a word correctly) and comprehension (understanding the meaning of the word), can cause a student to sound like they know how to read a particular text, but not understand what it is they just read. It seems as though there will be a good balance between the two, where the phonics side will demonstrate how they should say the word, how that relates to the word they see, and then leading to the understanding of what that word means. Time will tell if that is the case, and parents will need to be aware of that issue and raise any questions or concerns they have.

There is quite a bit of attention to the rigor of this curriculum, and I saw some pretty advanced vocabulary, especially in the lower grades. I wonder how the kids will pick up on it and not get lost by confusing lessons, but I was told that teachers will have the ability to circle back on lessons that needed more attention in their classroom. This is another area where aware and informed parents can support the teachers by letting them know if their student is not grasping the lessons completely. Teachers will be performing assessments, of course, but I have always found that good teachers appreciate the helpful cooperation and constructive feedback from parents.

If the curriculum is approved tonight, they intend to place the order tomorrow in order to get the materials delivered as soon as possible. This should avoid any supply chain issues, and it will allow teachers to start familiarizing themselves as soon as possible. They will have professional development time in August, but most teachers will want to prepare ahead of that time so that they can make the best use of team planning before students arrive.

I hope that everyone interested in this new curriculum took the opportunity that I did. I was glad to see two School Board members there that will be voting on this tonight, and I hope that the others have prepared accordingly ahead of voting on the issue.

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Last Updated: Apr 11, 2022 - Archived on Dec 31, 2023

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