Board Briefs

June 2 , 2005

President Ramstedt called the Committee of the Whole meeting of the Board of Education of June 2, 2005, to order at 7:35 p.m. Board members present: Mr. McPartlin, Mrs. Grier, Mrs. Harms, Mrs. Hull, Mr. Leane, and Mr. Abrams.

Comprehensive Curriculum Report – Part I
Lois Andrews, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, as well as two District 57 teachers, presented the first part of a two-part presentation of the Curriculum Review Report. A PowerPoint presentation demonstrated the steps the 17 member Curriculum Council has taken during the past two years to review and evaluate the curriculum process as well as make recommendations for future implementation. Three areas were introduced. The Written Curriculum, the Taught Curriculum, and the Assessed Curriculum.

For the Written Curriculum, an internal audit was done of all current curricula. This was followed by a small group review using the Curriculum Guide Analysis scoring system. Each curricular document was then rated on its components. Finally, the Council scored the district’s documents according to the rubric of the Standards Implementation System, offered by the Illinois State Board of Education. Recommendations are to create a common template for all new written curricula, and to create a curriculum planning calendar to delineate the progress of the six curriculum planning phases and avoid new adoptions in core areas each year.

For the Taught Curriculum, the committee reviewed teacher practice, alignment of general and special education, middle school program review, struggling learners, issues of change, professional development, and the gifted program. A task force of council members brought belief statements to the full Council for collaboration and support. Only half of this area was covered on June 2, the remainder will be presented on June 16.

The Assessed Curriculum will be presented on June 16.

This presentation was an informational item for the Board at this time.

District Goals/Multi-Year Agenda
Dr. Brown presented the tentative district goals for 2005-06. It is proposed that one to two major goals for each goal area be undertaken with a total of six to ten goals for the District. Included in the board review were Goal suggestions from Dr. Brown. Also included as part of the package was the Multi-Year Agenda. A review of this document in conjunction with the goal discussion is timely and appropriate. The Board will discuss these items during the June, July and August board meetings. The framework of the Board goals will be used by the teams of the schools to develop their School Improvement Plans in the fall.

This presentation was brought forward as a discussion item at this time.