Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, the staff were told they had four crummy free options to choose from, and they selected the least crummy option. The least the board could do is approve it given that there isn’t any money for a real curriculum. All these curriculums are just rough outlines with no actual resources, so there is a ton of work to do after the thing is approved.

All of hte so-called crummy free options they were looking at are substantially better than the expensive option we currently using, which is not aligned with standards. -Member of the review team.

Believe me, as an ELA teacher, I am no fan of study sink. However, the for free options we reviewed are still crummy. No materials are provided unless you pay for them, and the county isn’t paying for them. We are starting from scratch. This is especially frustrating since we had a decent curriculum before study sink which we paid a small fortune to be told wasn’t good enough. Since literacy is one of the most important things for our students, I don’t understand why we aren’t getting a high-quality curriculum like the William and Mary.

William & Mary is not a standards-aligned curriculum. CKLA is. It is a full curriculum and all the materials are available for download for free. MCPS said in the memo that it would be printing the materials.

CKLA is the same curriculum they are using in MCPS ES, albeit there is a published version for ES (not for MS).

??? There is absolutely a published version for MS. You can download a homeschool or classroom version from the CKLA website or purchase a printed classroom version for $270. If Amplify is their distributor then clearly they should have the means to provide a digital and/or print version in order to get our business. In fact we got a quote last year for the MS version. I fail to see how or why a full thorough review by committee hasn’t been conducted by now. Replacement of the MS curriculum wasn’t a surprise nor something that just came up this school year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the recommendation is to use CKLA (the free open source version, not the paid Amplify version like in elementary): https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DGEJWQ4F32DF/$file/MS%20ELA%20Curric%20Approval%20250508%20PPT.pdf

Any thoughts?

The board did not vote on this today. There were a lot of comments about lack of diversity among the evaluation participants. They'll try to bring it back to the board at one of the next two meetings.

This board is incompetent. If they don't act soon, they will have no curriculum at all. Or, they will get a curriculum in, but not have enough time to provide teachers with meaningful training.

While I do agree the board is inept and incompetent, they were right to be frustrated with the shoddy survey work and the lack of thorough evidence and material making the case for this curriculum. Chief Academic Officer Nikki Hazel showed up to a gun fight with a knife.

Yes, we have incompentent central office staff and an incompetent BOE, with a $1.3B+ budget. Lovely.

Oops, $3.3B+ budget.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the recommendation is to use CKLA (the free open source version, not the paid Amplify version like in elementary): https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DGEJWQ4F32DF/$file/MS%20ELA%20Curric%20Approval%20250508%20PPT.pdf

Any thoughts?

The board did not vote on this today. There were a lot of comments about lack of diversity among the evaluation participants. They'll try to bring it back to the board at one of the next two meetings.

This board is incompetent. If they don't act soon, they will have no curriculum at all. Or, they will get a curriculum in, but not have enough time to provide teachers with meaningful training.

While I do agree the board is inept and incompetent, they were right to be frustrated with the shoddy survey work and the lack of thorough evidence and material making the case for this curriculum. Chief Academic Officer Nikki Hazel showed up to a gun fight with a knife.

Yes, we have incompentent central office staff and an incompetent BOE, with a $1.3B+ budget. Lovely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, the staff were told they had four crummy free options to choose from, and they selected the least crummy option. The least the board could do is approve it given that there isn’t any money for a real curriculum. All these curriculums are just rough outlines with no actual resources, so there is a ton of work to do after the thing is approved.

All of hte so-called crummy free options they were looking at are substantially better than the expensive option we currently using, which is not aligned with standards. -Member of the review team.

Believe me, as an ELA teacher, I am no fan of study sink. However, the for free options we reviewed are still crummy. No materials are provided unless you pay for them, and the county isn’t paying for them. We are starting from scratch. This is especially frustrating since we had a decent curriculum before study sink which we paid a small fortune to be told wasn’t good enough. Since literacy is one of the most important things for our students, I don’t understand why we aren’t getting a high-quality curriculum like the William and Mary.

William & Mary is not a standards-aligned curriculum. CKLA is. It is a full curriculum and all the materials are available for download for free. MCPS said in the memo that it would be printing the materials.

CKLA is the same curriculum they are using in MCPS ES, albeit there is a published version for ES (not for MS).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, the staff were told they had four crummy free options to choose from, and they selected the least crummy option. The least the board could do is approve it given that there isn’t any money for a real curriculum. All these curriculums are just rough outlines with no actual resources, so there is a ton of work to do after the thing is approved.

All of hte so-called crummy free options they were looking at are substantially better than the expensive option we currently using, which is not aligned with standards. -Member of the review team.

Believe me, as an ELA teacher, I am no fan of study sink. However, the for free options we reviewed are still crummy. No materials are provided unless you pay for them, and the county isn’t paying for them. We are starting from scratch. This is especially frustrating since we had a decent curriculum before study sink which we paid a small fortune to be told wasn’t good enough. Since literacy is one of the most important things for our students, I don’t understand why we aren’t getting a high-quality curriculum like the William and Mary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the recommendation is to use CKLA (the free open source version, not the paid Amplify version like in elementary): https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DGEJWQ4F32DF/$file/MS%20ELA%20Curric%20Approval%20250508%20PPT.pdf

Any thoughts?

The board did not vote on this today. There were a lot of comments about lack of diversity among the evaluation participants. They'll try to bring it back to the board at one of the next two meetings.

This board is incompetent. If they don't act soon, they will have no curriculum at all. Or, they will get a curriculum in, but not have enough time to provide teachers with meaningful training.

While I do agree the board is inept and incompetent, they were right to be frustrated with the shoddy survey work and the lack of thorough evidence and material making the case for this curriculum. Chief Academic Officer Nikki Hazel showed up to a gun fight with a knife.

Anonymous wrote:Well, the staff were told they had four crummy free options to choose from, and they selected the least crummy option. The least the board could do is approve it given that there isn’t any money for a real curriculum. All these curriculums are just rough outlines with no actual resources, so there is a ton of work to do after the thing is approved.

All of hte so-called crummy free options they were looking at are substantially better than the expensive option we currently using, which is not aligned with standards. -Member of the review team.

Anonymous wrote:Well, the staff were told they had four crummy free options to choose from, and they selected the least crummy option. The least the board could do is approve it given that there isn’t any money for a real curriculum. All these curriculums are just rough outlines with no actual resources, so there is a ton of work to do after the thing is approved.

CKLA has actual resources that can be downloaded or purchased including at Teacher’s Guide, Activity Book, and Reader.

Well, the staff were told they had four crummy free options to choose from, and they selected the least crummy option. The least the board could do is approve it given that there isn’t any money for a real curriculum. All these curriculums are just rough outlines with no actual resources, so there is a ton of work to do after the thing is approved.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the recommendation is to use CKLA (the free open source version, not the paid Amplify version like in elementary): https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DGEJWQ4F32DF/$file/MS%20ELA%20Curric%20Approval%20250508%20PPT.pdf

Any thoughts?

The board did not vote on this today. There were a lot of comments about lack of diversity among the evaluation participants. They'll try to bring it back to the board at one of the next two meetings.

This board is incompetent. If they don't act soon, they will have no curriculum at all. Or, they will get a curriculum in, but not have enough time to provide teachers with meaningful training.

Sounds like poor staff work caused the problem and the board is waiting for a better decision-making process.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the recommendation is to use CKLA (the free open source version, not the paid Amplify version like in elementary): https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DGEJWQ4F32DF/$file/MS%20ELA%20Curric%20Approval%20250508%20PPT.pdf

Any thoughts?

The board did not vote on this today. There were a lot of comments about lack of diversity among the evaluation participants. They'll try to bring it back to the board at one of the next two meetings.

This board is incompetent. If they don't act soon, they will have no curriculum at all. Or, they will get a curriculum in, but not have enough time to provide teachers with meaningful training.

They tabled it until the next meeting, May 22.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the recommendation is to use CKLA (the free open source version, not the paid Amplify version like in elementary): https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DGEJWQ4F32DF/$file/MS%20ELA%20Curric%20Approval%20250508%20PPT.pdf

Any thoughts?

The board did not vote on this today. There were a lot of comments about lack of diversity among the evaluation participants. They'll try to bring it back to the board at one of the next two meetings.

This board is incompetent. If they don't act soon, they will have no curriculum at all. Or, they will get a curriculum in, but not have enough time to provide teachers with meaningful training.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the recommendation is to use CKLA (the free open source version, not the paid Amplify version like in elementary): https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DGEJWQ4F32DF/$file/MS%20ELA%20Curric%20Approval%20250508%20PPT.pdf

Any thoughts?

The board did not vote on this today. There were a lot of comments about lack of diversity among the evaluation participants. They'll try to bring it back to the board at one of the next two meetings.

Oh interesting. Did it sound like it might not go through after all? Did the board want to keep the current curriculum or have them possibly consider other alternatives?

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the recommendation is to use CKLA (the free open source version, not the paid Amplify version like in elementary): https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DGEJWQ4F32DF/$file/MS%20ELA%20Curric%20Approval%20250508%20PPT.pdf

Any thoughts?

The board did not vote on this today. There were a lot of comments about lack of diversity among the evaluation participants. They'll try to bring it back to the board at one of the next two meetings.

That is great news. Will take some adjusting for current middle school students, as CKLA is much more rigorous than StudySync, but should be better in a couple of years given that ES also uses CKLA and kids will adjust to rigor and pacing.

Now the focus should be on fixing the awful HS English curriculum that MCPS wrote itself.