The Santa Barbara Unified Board of Trustees approved a new elementary English Language Arts Curriculum at the Tuesday, May 9th meeting.
The Trustees approved the Wit & Wisdom/Fundations curriculum after going through a thorough process led by Denise Alvarado, Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction, and a committee of teachers, staff, and administrators.
The process of selecting a curriculum began back in January. It included teachers from every grade level and school, emergent multilingual learner experts, special education experts, literacy and language experts, principals, and administrators.
Feedback was also gathered from community members involved in various committees, such as the Literacy Taskforce, and parents from each of our schools.
Before making a recommendation, a field test of the curriculum was also conducted.
“This process has been thorough, with an effort to get feedback from as many groups of teachers, staff, and community members as possible. This new curriculum is a crucial step to helping us improve literacy outcomes in the District. This is not the only work underway. Teachers across the district are working on developing their expertise in the teaching of literacy in two key ways. We have our first cohort of teachers participating in a two-year training, LETRS, which develops teacher knowledge of evidence-based practices. Similarly, teachers at all schools have been engaging in work around the book The Teaching Reading Playbook, which also supports teachers’ knowledge of structured literacy practices," said Dr. Hilda Maldonado, Superintendent.
The first year of training will include professional development during the summer and every month during the school year. As a school system, we plan to meet the needs of new and experienced teachers. Therefore, this work will remain ongoing and use a set of common assessments to ensure we know what students need by monitoring their progress during the year.
The new curriculum will be used starting in the 2023-2024 school year.