Members of the Board of Education’s Curriculum and Instruction Committee and Assistant Superintendent of Schools Linda Gejda recently reflected on the work the group has accomplished and its future endeavors.

As Dr Gejda explained, the Board of Education’s Curriculum and Instruction Committee members Michelle Ku and John Vouros are given initial information before presentations are made by district educators for full school board. The Curriculum and Instruction Committee then requests information, if needed, to be added and decides whether the presentation is ready to go before the full school board.

Information provided by community members who participated in a community forum in September, Ms Ku said, has been used to guide the committee. Responses during the community forum included requests for more rigor and challenges in school for students.

Ms Ku also said the committee uses the district’s mission statement, to inspire each student to excel, as a guide.

For her, Ms Ku said she sees the concept of personalized learning as the direction the curriculum should be leaning toward, in order to accomplish more rigor and meet the district’s mission. Ms Ku described personal learning as the effort to offer courses that excite and challenge students and teaching in ways that address personal learning styles.

Dr Gejda said she is excited about the work the school board’s Curriculum and Instruction Committee has been doing, and said the committee allows for a deeper conversation about programs within the district.

Both Ms Ku and Dr Gejda said the Northwest Educational Assessment (NWEA), which the district piloted for mathematics last school year, is an assessment tool that helps a teacher sense where a student’s learning level is. Dr Gejda explained the NWEA, which is for kindergarten through ninth grade students, is administered three times a year and this year the district is also administering a reading component along with the math assessment.

“I think students are getting more comfortable with this kind of assessment now,” said Dr Gejda.

If a student needs support in some areas, Dr Gejda said the NWEA, which is an adaptive online assessment that gears subsequent questions based on a student’s responses, the assessment will identify those areas.

On March 17, the school board heard one of multiple recent curriculum and instruction presentations given by local educators. That meeting’s presentation focused the district’s math curriculum. The presentation was long in the making, according to Ms Ku, Dr Gejda, and Mr Vouros, and more work is also underway.

The math presentation involved educators and administrators representing each level of math instruction in the school district, kindergarten through high school. The presentation included a diagram of how students advance through math throughout the grades and discussion with board members about how students are placed in different levels of math.

During that meeting, Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, said it was refreshing to talk about teaching and learning and said, “The next level of work, I think, is clear. It is our continued belief that parents are partners and how do we become… transparent with parents with everything we are doing and how do we become transparent with the learner?”

The superintendent also said the math presentation took a year of preparation work between the presenters and the school board’s Curriculum and Instruction Committee with Dr Gejda.

“This is the beginning,” Dr Erardi continued about the math presentation. “We have to engage parents, we have to engage our students…”

Both Ms Ku and Mr Vouros said the math presentation was the result of the school board asking for more information about how students progress through the different levels of math and grade levels. According to Mr Vouros, more information was requested following the math presentation, and further efforts are being made to look at data, including results from the NWEA math portion.

One thing Ms Ku noted came out of the effort to look at math instruction in the district is an improvement in communication. Mr Vouros said he expects Reed Intermediate School hold a presentation for parents about the math curriculum.

Communication overall, not just regarding the math curriculum, Mr Vouros said, is another goal the Curriculum and Instruction Committee has been focusing on.

 Mr Vouros and Ms Ku said they have also been speaking with Dr Gejda about a number of ideas she has for the district, including possible participation in Project Lead the Way, which provides science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs for kindergarten to twelfth grade students, according to the program.

Explaining that Project Lead the Way partners with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Fortune 500 companies, Dr Gejda said Project Lead the Way also offers programs at different institutions, including the University of New Haven

“I’m very excited about it, because I think it is a perfect fit for Newtown,” Dr Gejda said.

With the 2015-16 budget already mapped out, Dr Gejda said having the district participate in Project Lead the Way is not something for the next school year. Instead, Dr Gejda said the Curriculum and Instruction Committee will focus on participating with the program in the future.

The committee has also been working with a district curriculum council, according to Ms Ku and Mr Vouros. The council, made up of educators from throughout the district, is working to rework the district’s guidelines for curriculum development and revision.

The guide, said Dr Gejda, will help teachers develop and format curriculum.

Dr Gejda said the council is nearing its final version of the guidelines, and expects it to come before the Board of Education for approval. The reworked guidelines, according to Dr Gejda, will focus on the district’s concept-based approach to curriculum, among other things.

Mr Ku also said the Curriculum and Instruction Committee continues to focus on many areas of instruction in the district, including the district’s Gifted and Talented Education Students (GATES) program, world language, and science.

With Dr Gejda’s appointment on Monday, April 27, by the Stratford Board of Education to be its new assistant superintendent, Dr Gejda said her work, including her efforts with the Curriculum and Instruction Committee, will be finalized or planned out before she begins her new position in Stratford, which she said she expects to begin at the start of July.