Recently I attended the first meeting of the Hillsboro School District Curriculum Committee for this school year. (Well, actually there was a previous meeting, but it wasn't on the district calendar & they notified me at a bad email address, and less than half the committee attended, so I'm not counting it.) It looks like there will be some positive changes on the committee.
As you may have gathered from my earlier blog posts, last year the committee's main activities consisted of watching presentations from district officials on various aspects of the curriculum. While it was educational, there was a slight issue... in that we didn't actually DO anything. We didn't present to anyone, generate written reports (unless you count this blog), or hold a vote on any issue.
At this meeting, Kathi Robinson, the district official who runs the committee, described some areas where we might contribute:
- Reviewing the massive Common Core documents & producing simple explanations for parents
- Investigating technology opportunities such as open source texts & "bring your own device"
At the next meeting, the plan is to divide us into subcommittees and discuss these areas further. I'm a little nervous about the fact that they are aiming for all work to be done onsite at the 1.5 hour committee meetings (apparently some parents are too busy for homework)... But it seems like a good direction for the committee compared to last year!
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