Milford School District Board of Education members questioned a proposed policy that would eliminate the need to review curriculum every five years. The policy was proposed in January as an introduction. President Scott Fitzgerald questioned why the district would remove a requirement to review curriculum every five years.
“This would change the curriculum to rather than being on a five-year cycle which sometimes would take even up to five years for us to get the professional learning so that a curriculum would be up and running,” Dr. Kelly Carvajal-Hageman, Director of Student Learning, said. “And so even to know if it’s ready to be changed might take longer or if we had to change a curriculum at a shorter time, this just gives us the flexibility rather than naming a specific number of years that we can review the curriculum based on the data that we receive rather than a set number of times.”
Fitzgerald commented that he felt the current policy that required it every five years was not only sufficient, but that curricula should be reviewed even more often than that. Vice-President Matt Bucher asked if there was any curriculum that would be in violation or close to violation if the policy was not adopted.
“We have curricula that are at the five-year point right now and we have been working on reviewing those curricula. We are not in violation at this time. This is merely an update to the policy.,” Carvajal-Hageman said. “t’s the policy that has been in place for quite some time. Since the time when this policy was written there have been changes in the national trends and research around the development of curricula and what determines high quality curricular materials and so the minor changes in the policy reflect that.”
Bucher asked why the district was not constantly getting feedback from frontline teachers and altering curricula, making changes as they are needed. Carvajal-Hageman stated that this was the purpose of the policy update, giving district staff flexibility in how often they review curriculum.
“And you can’t do that with the curriculum policy that has been around for 20 years? It seems to be in practice that you’ve got a perfectly good policy here and the reason it has been around for 20 years and the reason it has not been changed is that because it’s a good policy,” Bucher said. “It’s been through a lot of different administrators and boards and I’m trying to get to the motivation to change it now when it seems to be good. I mean, how has it failed us, I guess that is my big question.”
Carvejal-Hageman commented that she didn’t anticipate so many questions although she appreciated them. Bucher stated that the board had taken a month to think about the policy and his point was that he just wanted to drill down to what motivated the change to the policy.
“There are some changes to the way that the committee works primarily because there were multiple pilots that had to be completed and that is no longer necessary,” Carvejal-Hageman said. “There is extensive work that at the national level of the definition of high-quality curriculum and information that comes from Ed Reports and other national organizations so there’s less need for extensive pilots for curriculum decisions.”
Bucher continued to express concern that the board would be removing a guardrail that required review of curriculum every five years. He felt staff should be constantly reviewing curriculum and making adjustments as necessary. Carvejal-Hageman interpreted the current policy as reading that the district could not review curriculum sooner than five years. Fitzgerald pointed out that he interpreted the policy that five years was a minimum, not a maximum.
“Reading through this critically, I think some of the changes are appropriate. I mean adding the legalese of state and federal laws I think is appropriate. Looking at curriculum under the light of evidence-based curriculum which probably was not even a term that was used when this was first drafted, I think those are probably appropriate,” Board member Dr. Adam Brownstein said. “I’m going to take issue with one thing you said. You made a comment, and I’ll paraphrase where you said, “these curriculums are rigorously evaluated before they are implemented.” Being surveyed and evaluated and piloted for instance and I would disagree with that. I mean, we adopted the Bookworm’s curriculum which was supposed to be a highly vetted curriculum and there were some real logistical issues with that curriculum. There was some choice language in some of the books that made it into our classrooms.”
Brownstein continued, stating that while curriculum as a whole was vetted, they are sometimes vetted from an academic standpoint, but not for the grassroot teacher scenario. He felt a pilot program resolved that.
“I also share Matt’s concern that while I don’t think that the present administration would not have a thoughtful review completed in a timely fashion, the members of this board will change, the members of our administrative staff will change and I don’t know what this district will look like two years from now, five years from now,” Brownstein said. “I think what Matt’s really saying is he’s not accusing anyone of shirking in their duties today, but who knows? And removing that guardrail introduces the opportunity for someone in the future to capitalize on that opening and that would clearly not be in the best interest of the students, the staff, the administration or the people of Milford.”
Board member Jennifer Masotti also questioned parts of the policy.
“This was something I highlighted when I read through this because I was like “what does regular review mean? What’s the definition of that?” And when you have a timeframe, a timeline, there is more of an accountability factor because then you need to do it,” Masotti said. “And then, the other thing that I was wondering, it says what changed when you’re setting up a committee, it says and may include parents. To me, that means you can choose to have them, but you don’t have to have them. I think parents are vital because they are the ones that are kind of helping steer their child, they’re studying with them, they’re looking over whatever content that they’re bringing home in their paperwork. So, that to me leaves it open that they don’t have to include them.”
Bucher agreed with Masotti, stating that the new policy removed the words “curriculum committee.”
“The process used to be and per policy is the committee was formally appointed, the curriculum committee, and I think the board even voted on it,” Bucher said. “Of course, our predecessors would vote on whoever the administration wanted, but [this policy] knocks that out and seems to say there would be no curriculum committee.”
Carvejal-Hageman stated that the curriculum committee would remain, and that wording was included in the policy twice. Bucher stated that it actually said “curriculum department” which led him to believe administration would be responsible for the review. He also pointed out that the new policy also eliminated a requirement that staff and pilot teachers would be part of the review, replacing that language with “curriculum department.”
“There is a process where teachers have input,” Carvejal-Hageman said. “It’s part of the [Milford Education Association] MEA contract where they have input in the professional development plan. That was an attempt to put that in.”
Bucher commented that he did not believe that was included in the policy based on his reading.
“I don’t know what the intention is. I am much, much more in favor of a top-down approach to a lot of things that we do in the school district, but I think academics, we have to start from the bottom to the grassroots and work our way up and we have to include the teacher, the frontline classroom teachers, that know what’s working and what’s not,” Bucher said. “If Bridges isn’t working or if it can be changed in a couple of different ways, then we need to get their input. I just feel like this was not necessarily the intent, but the real-world consequences if we were to approve this policy that we would have a more top down approach in academics and that is the one area that I think we need all hands on deck, particularly if we expect to get out of the doldrums.”
Bucher commented that the policy was still in discussion and that he would like to hear more from other board members, particularly Jean Wylie who was a retired teacher and administrator. He made a motion to table the decision for a month so that staff could tweak the policy and possibly improve it. The motion was approved unanimously.
