A Message from the Curriculum Director

Welcome to the MCSD Curriculum page. In the last decade, our curriculum work has changed significantly. It has gone from being driven by textbooks that were predominantly written for the big states (New York, Michigan, California, Florida and Texas) to being "developed and curated" by our teachers.

Developing Curricula: When developing curricula, we use a process called Understanding by Design (UbD). It is a backward planning process that requires educators to first use state standards to identify learning outcomes. When learning outcomes have been identified, assessments are written or selected to measure those learning outcomes. Only when the learning outcomes and assessments have been decided upon do teachers begin to plan how the learning will take place.

Curating Curricula: About four years ago, MCSD began using Open Education Resources (OER) in many curricular areas. OER are freely accessible, openly licensed text and media that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing. Moving to the use of OER allows the district save on costs from buying expensive textbooks that can become quickly outdated. It also allows us to edit the curricula to meet local needs free from concerns about violating copyright.

Some Notes on our Curriculum Files:

1. Curriculum work is an ongoing process. Teachers commonly work in teams with the support and guidance of their principals and instructional coaches on their curriculum. You may find some curriculum documents unfinished. We will be working on them throughout the year and those changes will be reflected here as they are made.

2. These curriculum documents were created by educators for educators. They weren't created with parents or community members as the audience in mind. There will be coding for standards that will not make sense. Some of the Google Sheets documents have the subjects on multiple tabs at the bottom of the sheet. In addition, there are links embedded in the documents that are only viewable by MCSD teachers. When you click on them you may get a message that states that you do not have permission, access denied, or takes you to Google login page. The owner of these documents cannot share access because they link to assessments and other materials that we do not want in the hands of students. If you would like to view these inaccessible documents, please schedule an appointment with the Curriculum Director. The district has begun to work on parent friendly curriculum documents. They will be added to this site as they are finished.

Contact Info: Further questions or concerns regarding the curriculum should be directed to:

Zack Allen

Director of Curriculum & Educator Effectiveness

(970) 826-6343

zack.allen@moffatsd.org

Critical Race Theory is Not Used in MCSD Curricula

1. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is not and has never been a design criteria that MCSD has used to select or develop curricula.

2. Our curriculum was selected/developed around the following design principles:

• Connection to the Colorado Academic Standards (CRT is not in the standards)

• Supports achieving our mission and belief statements from our strategic plan

• Designed with the end in mind (i.e. we start curriculum development with the standards, then build assessments and build daily lessons last)

• Supports evidence based instructional practices

• Leverages technology

3. Colorado is a “local control” state. While the state has created standards, curriculum decisions rest with local school districts and boards. Neither the state legislature nor the Colorado Department of Education has mandated the use of any specific curricula.

4. Most of our curricula is developed from Open Education Resources (OER) - OER gives us a base to adapt curriculum to meet our local needs.

5. Academic freedom - Our teachers enjoy a degree of academic freedom under the guidance of building principals and the curriculum director. Our teachers have the ability to adapt their lessons as long as they address the standards and learning expectations in a way that is consistent with evidence based best practices.

6. CRT is not synonymous with equity. We are committed to educating and inspiring ALL of our students to thrive in an environment of change.