This is an exciting week for Curriculum Matters! In the midst of welcome buzz about curriculum, we’re excited to debut a new website and announce the addition of nine new members of our PLN! It doesn’t get much better from our corner of the world!!!
Two years ago, when a few of us started gathering at the end of a long work week – yes, via Zoom (before it became synonymous with “meeting”) – to notice and wonder about our implementation of new, high-quality ELA curricula, we couldn’t have guessed what it would blossom into. We’ve been able to launch a serious professional learning network that not only allows us important opportunities for professional collaboration but also a platform for pushing good news out into the world.
Curriculum Matters is a network of educators leading district implementation of high-quality, knowledge-building curriculum who have come together to share our learning so that other educators might benefit from, and be able to apply, our experience.
Our vision is to help bring about a “tipping point” of school districts across the country providing high-quality, equitable, and engaging instruction for all students – instruction that results in a deep sense of professional pride and fulfillment for educators and that encourages and supports all students in achieving lofty academic and life goals.
We hope our new website will make accessing the content the PLN puts out easier for those who could benefit from it and, importantly, easier for you to share it. Since we have also begun to host occasional webinars and open Zoom chats, we’ve also made it easier to access those Events. If you haven’t signed up for our email list, please do so here.
We are ecstatic that our PLN is now 20 members strong (with three more who are now in alumni status, having moved out of their district role.) We now have members from California to Florida, representing districts as small as 2,500 students and as large as 148,000. Ten different high-quality ELA curricula are used across our districts.
An important part of the story we look to share in the months ahead is the one about the professional learning journey our districts have undergone as we’ve adopted our curricula – and the partners with whom we’ve worked to achieve the success we have.
All of our events are open – as is the PLN. If you are leading district implementation of high-quality ELA curriculum, and you’re making significant investments of time and money in your teaching community to support their success with your new curriculum, we invite you to join us.
We seek to build a community of change agents who advance student outcomes through dynamic professional collaboration and sharing – and hope our new website will begin to make this possible. Enjoy; and welcome to our new members!
– From the Recruitment Committee (Yvette Blue, Nakia Hardy, Brian Kingsley, and Robin McClellan) on behalf of the entire Curriculum Matters Squad
