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Thursday, May 29, 2014

2015 School Curriculum Programs


Anita Weston, Reporter
Rich Civic Times 

RANDOLPH, Utah.  May 21, 2014.  School curriculum decisions have been made for the coming school year.  The middle school Principal Kip Motta organized a committee to work on the math program for the North Rich elementary and middle schools.  Last year the middle school went with the Digits program.  This year K through 5 will adopt the Go Math program.  These programs will be used for the next six years.  The cost of the elementary program for this time period will be $29,200.  The student text is consumable, and there are many on line materials that will be available to the students.  There are many teacher resources and intervention materials to assist those having problems.  The teachers are excited about the program because students will be taught multiple ways to solve problems.

The High School math program presents a dilemma.  It has been a three-year wait to be able to get a program that is close to the State core choice of an international model.  The text selected fits the core the best.  It is from Pearson Publishing.  There are some really good materials.  There are hard copy textbooks as well as on-line texts and software.  A combination of both hard copy and software will be used.  There is also a math excel program that will be used as supplementary material.  Again, the choice was made for the next six-year time period at a cost of $19,999.  Six years of the Digits program will be $9,800 because it does such a good job in working with the SAGE test problems.  Also, the opportunity to analyze problems at different levels is available.  The total amount comes to $49,050 which is approximately $8,000 per year.

The teachers and administrators are excited about the program.  They had to wait three years to get materials that will work well.  The longer the students have to move through the program, the better and easier it will be.  It is going to be a good thing.

Principal Larsen worked with the adoption of a language arts program.  The high school will be adopting the Journey Program.  It goes from K through 8 which is mainly reading.  There needs to be a writing and grammar program.  The Zaner-Blouser program will cover the writing portion in scope and sequence.  Also, the school will purchase the Collections Program put out by Houton Mufflin. 

So far a writing grammar program has not been found for the high school.  The high school students do well with writing and have strong results on the SAGE tests.  Their reading scores are strong.  The Explore and ACT programs have been most helpful in both of these areas.  However, the challenge is grammar and sentence structure.  The students struggle with this part of the exams.  Thus, a grammar component still needs to be found.

It was decided to buy ten hardback copies of the books and digital copies for everyone of the Houton Mifflin materials from K through 12.  This is the latest and best resources that are available.  Currently, the 6th grade class is large.  The school will buy what is needed by the other classes and get extra copies as this class moves up through the school.

The Principles thanked the School Board for the money spent for good curriculum materials.  They have allowed the schools to stay current and up-to-date.      The Zaner-Blouzer programs should help where students are weak in writing.  The Journeys language arts program is especially good, and the staff really likes this program.  The same company produces both Journeys and Go Math.

The motion was made and passed by the Board to accept the recommended Curriculum programs.

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