Curriculum work on schedule

The curriculum realignment process is on track for May completion, teachers told the Bigfork School Board on Wednesday.

Groups of teachers called high performance teams, or HPTs, were restructured this summer with teachers from a single subject area rather than from each grade level. These teams were then tasked with identifying from grade 12 down what students need to know to be successful, figuring out how to assess those skills and coming up with the best practices to achieve them.

Teachers representing all subject areas presented on their progress at the Feb. 17 meeting and most said they were working on pinning down standards and benchmarks for each grade level.

Some teams were concerned that the information needed to be shared with all teachers at each grade level before it was published to look for gaps or problems.

Teams in science and social studies said they were somewhat limited by few members from the elementary school. Since there are only about three teachers in each grade level at the elementary school, they are spread thin through subject areas beside math and language arts. Not all teams have representatives from all elementary grades.

Superintendent Russ Kinzer said he was aware of the concerns and the scope of the task and would make sure the teachers across each grade level had a way to review the work of the subjects.

"If that means extending into next year, the administration will have to adapt to that," Kinzer said. "We knew this was a pretty significant task."

Over the next few months, the school board will go to two meetings a month to hear fully from each of the teams.

Read more about this month's school board meeting in the Feb. 25 Bigfork Eagle.