Committees
Current Adoption Committees
The process to adopt new instructional materials for grades K-5 English Language Arts (ELA) began in January 2023. A committee was formed with more than 40 community members, instructional coaches, teachers, principals, special education staff, a speech and language pathologist, and other content experts. Below is a timeline with the scope of committee work:
- January 2023: Adoption overview; defining the purpose and scope of work; research and identification of best practices using ELA standards, science of reading and instructional materials inventory
- February 2023: An overview of LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) professional development training by LETRS trainers.
- March 2023: Exploration of curriculum evaluation tools and creation of best practices and criteria document. Utilize best practices/criteria document to preliminarily preview ELA materials.
- April 2023: Vendors present ELA materials; committee selects two materials to field test
- September - December 2023: Field test and professional development begins on ELA materials 'A'
- December 2023: Debrief and gather feedback using rubrics, assessments and other data from ELA materials 'A' field test
- January - March 2024: Field test and professional development begins on ELA materials 'B'
- April 2024: Debrief and gather feedback using rubrics, assessments and other data from ELA materials 'B' field test; committee selects and recommends ELA materials to be presented to the Instructional Material Committee (IMC) for consideration
- April-May 2024: Public review of materials; IMC recommendation of selected curriculum given to the school board
If the school board approves the selected instructional materials, they would be implemented into classrooms for the 2024-25 school year. Professional development training for staff would take place in August 2024.
Recent Adoption Committees
The Social Emotional Learning (SEL) adoption committee began working on selecting new instructional materials in January 2022. As part of the adoption process, the committee reviewed current Washington state SEL standards; researched best practices in SEL instruction; and identified priority standards, outcomes and skills. In the winter of 2023, the SEL committee completed its review of available instructional materials and selected material to pilot in the spring of 2023. Upon completion of the pilot, the committee presented their recommended materials to the IMC.
PurposeFull People was selected for grades K-5 and CharacterStrong for grades 8-12. The new SEL instructional materials began being used during the 2023-24 school year.
The district would like to thank the more than 120 people who had a role within the committee over the past 18 months. Each person was vital to the success of the committee, bringing their experience and expertise in a variety of capacities, including community members, teachers, instructional specialists, counselors, social workers, a librarian, a nurse, and administrators from all sites.