Commitment to Inclusive Curriculum

Our work to develop a more inclusive curriculum is a four-year journey beginning in 2016.

K-12 Cultural Competence Global Awareness Curriculum Chart

To date the following has been accomplished:

Created a process to update all our novels in our secondary ELA courses to:

• Provide opportunities for the advancement of students’ understanding of concepts of equity and facilitate optimum opportunities for student inclusion within the classroom
• Are culturally relevant and developmentally appropriate
• Reflect voices that are underrepresented in the current curriculum
• Provide multiple points of entry into practicing skills
• Represents a balance of genres and relevance to students’ cultures, which includes a diversity of topics, structures, authors, and protagonists
• Build empathy for others’ lived experiences
• Offer multiple perspectives
• As part of the overall update to our ELA curriculum, we are developing a scope and sequence by unit within each grade that provides a balance of a variety of voices and diverse authors
• Procedure 2020P – Exhibit C – Materials Adoption Process for Additional Materials (PDF), Procedure 2020P – Exhibit D – Evaluation Tool for Text Adoption (PDF), Procedure 2020P – Exhibit E – Bias Review (PDF)
• Adopted 20 novels for our MS and HS courses

Purchased classroom libraries for K and 1^st grade to provide more culturally responsive books.

Offer a Race in the US elective semester course at the High School level.

• One section offered at each of the comprehensive high schools and two sections at Big Picture for the 2019-20 school year.
• About 25-30 students in each section
• The district offers as many sections as we have students that request the course. We don’t limit the number of sections.

Updated our 5^th, 8^th, 11^th grade US History courses.

• Strategy #1: Develop, adopt and/or update curriculum materials and lessons to be more culturally responsive.
• Implementation:
  • Revised, added or adapted lessons to implement a decolonized curriculum with multiple perspectives and culturally responsive instructional practices
  • Added rigorous and relevant lessons to teach previously excluded narratives and instruct an expanded and age-appropriate account of our past
  • Instructional materials about race and culture have been embedded and are foundational lessons in grades 5, 8 and 11
  • Thoughtfully Integrated and vertically aligned Since Time Immemorial (STI) Lessons (Tribal History and Culture Education) throughout our K-12 Instructional Pathways
  • Developed and purchased K-5 book lists by indigenous authors
  • Purchased supplemental resources for professional learning and instructional use
• Strategy #2: Provide ongoing professional development centered on culturally responsive instructional practices and decolonized curricular materials
  • Implementation: Provided on-going professional development and embedded coaching for teachers beginning in March 2019 through present time.

Summary of updated 5^th, 8^th, 11^th grade US History courses

• Curriculum development is on track
• Ensuring our instructional materials will leverage, reflect, and affirm the unique experiences of students, requires a shift from a dominant narrative in U.S. History to an inclusion of historical accounts from multiple perspectives
• Continual refinement of curriculum and instructional practices is critical to ensure student voice, multiple perspectives and underlying narratives
• Effective implementation requires ongoing professional learning and embedded coaching
• Student and teacher feedback is critical to continual refinement of curriculum resources and instruction

US History courses through the Lens of Critical Criteria

• Consider Each and Every Student​
  • The Grade 5, 8 and 11 U.S. History curriculum benefits all students equitably honoring multiple perspectives and providing a more complete U.S. History. ​
  • The curriculum recognizes and honors historically excluded voices. ​
• Serve all Students and Stakeholders​
  • The Social Studies curriculum serves students first by promoting an inquiry approach, fostering discourse, cultivating critical thinking and honoring the diverse historical narratives our students and staff bring to the classroom.

Curriculum Adoptions

Our current involvement process:

• Instructional Materials Committee includes the following:
  • 4-6 certificated staff (selected from a potential group of counselors, Special Education teachers, multilingual learner teachers, and discipline-specific teachers/curriculum developers)
  • 1-3 parents from the school community
  • 2-4 students from the school community
• In recruitment of the team members, we strive to enlist members that represent the diversity of our learning community.

Our current timeline for curriculum adoption:

• • We have 3 Instructional Materials Committee (IMC) meetings a year
  • A shift from 1 IMC meeting a year so we can update our novels in a timelier manner.

Governing Policy:

• Procedure 2020P – Exhibit C – Materials Adoption Process for Additional Materials (PDF) (guideline for approval)
  • Important Content Point: “The team will apply and discuss the district- bias review tool as part of this process.”
• Procedure 2020P – Exhibit D – Evaluation Tool for Text Adoption (PDF) (evaluation tool)
  • Important Content Points:
    • The work reflects voices that are underrepresented in the curriculum.
    • Members of underrepresented groups are depicted as complex individuals in varied contexts.
    • Representations challenge or critique dominant power structures
• Procedure 2020P – Exhibit E – Bias Review (PDF) (evaluation tool for bias review)
  • Important Content Points:
    • Representation of gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, religion, ability, and socioeconomic status.
    • Detail on race/ethnicity category:
      • People of underrepresented races/ ethnicities are central characters, especially protagonists, in the story.
      • Characters of all races/ethnicities are equally likely to demonstrate qualities such as leadership, intelligence, imagination, courage, and agency.
      • The work performed by characters is not determined by race/ethnicity.
      • The text provides a variety of racial/ethnic perspectives
      • The text avoids the implicit and explicit language of racial/ethnic discrimination.
      • The text avoids oversimplified generalizations about different races/ethnicities.
      • Author writes from a position of authority about underrepresented races/ethnicities.