September 8, 2003
To: All Professional Staff
From: Dr. Vince McKay, Director of Instructional Services
Re: Curriculum Update
The CD that is attached to this memo contains the most current curriculum documents for the district. As most of you are aware, these documents were created over the last several years by teachers from across the district in collaboration with my predecessor Steve Driscoll and a curriculum consultant. Last year's efforts were focused at the Middle School. The curriculum was developed in a technology-focused process using a computer software tool known as CLASP.
In the process of my orientation to the district and the existing curriculum review process, I have been very impressed with the district's commitment to a standards-based approach to curriculum and assessment and the enormous amount of curriculum that has already been documented. Clearly, teachers have been working very hard in this area. My area of focus at this time is to work with district curriculum staff - principals, department heads, and program/curriculum leaders - to take the curriculum to the next level. To accomplish this, the curriculum teams will be meeting this fall to set priorities in their respective areas; one area of focus will certainly be History and Social Science, K-12, now that the state frameworks have been formally adopted.
In advance of the formal goal-setting process (about which I will be communicating to you in the future), I felt it was important, however, to distribute the curriculum documentation for your immediate use. As you are probably aware, these documents are, for the most part, organized by strand of the frameworks and contain many useful resources including curriculum references, instructional strategies and assessments. The curriculum sharing features that go along with the CLASP software are not included in this CD. Mass Networks, our partner in this effort, is in the process of upgrading the software and several districts have reported good success with an early version of the software. At this time, however, it's my goal to assess how to make the best use of our existing work before moving ahead. This evaluation will be comprehensive and will involve as many staff as possible as we consider the application of technology in our curriculum process and the value of any new software tool.
Please feel free to share your thoughts with me via phone (923-2000) or email (vmckay@freelake.mec.edu), or any time you want to stop by the office. I look forward to meeting you in the school buildings and wish you a great school year.
