Dear RPS Families,
We are pleased to announce that we have selected a new curriculum for our English Language Arts classes for Kindergarten through 8th grade: EL Education!
EL Education is a nationally recognized nonprofit that produces high-quality instructional materials. They focus on three dimensions of student achievement: mastery of knowledge and skills, character development, and high-quality student work. For more information, watch this video introduction.
This year, we convened teams of educators from across the district to engage in a year-long process of evaluating and selecting our new curriculum. Together, we created a literacy vision and we defined priorities for selecting the curriculum program that would best meet our needs. We learned about curriculum rating systems, looked at the reviews, created our own scorecard, and narrowed the options. We finally chose two programs to field-test in classrooms. Teachers, students, and school administrators were surveyed to see how these programs met our priorities.
We also heard from families that your most important priorities for this curriculum were:
- Diverse authors, characters, and viewpoints
- Strong writing program
- Activities require complex thinking and collaboration with peers.
In mid-May, elementary and middle school teams met to review all the data that was collected and to build consensus around the best choice for Randolph. We think we picked a winner with EL Education!
Plans are already underway to make sure we implement the curriculum successfully, such as offering professional learning over the summer, and establishing expectations for how we will use these new materials in the classroom. Please look for more information in September about what ELA classrooms will look like.
We’re excited to partner with you to support literacy learning in grades K-8! If you have any questions, please reach out to your child’s teacher or principal.
Warm regards,
Amy Hartley-Matteson
Dr. Amy Hartley-Matteson
Assistant Superintendent Randolph Public Schools