Parkway School District curriculum leaders launched a targeted evaluation of the K–12 social studies program on Sept. 10, telling the board the review will concentrate on vertical alignment, classroom implementation, relevance to students’ lives and student assessment outcomes.

Kevin Beckner, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, introduced the review and said the work builds on a decade of prior program evaluation and state standards revisions. John Duvall and Alexis Lukey, curriculum coordinators for social studies, described a schedule that begins this fall with grade‑band task forces and data collection and will culminate in a targeted‑review memo to the board in April.

“We have the opportunity to target particular areas that we want to study in terms of our original goals with our curriculum and to see how well those have been implemented,” Lukey said, describing the team’s plan to analyze vertical alignment and classroom viability following COVID‑era implementation disruptions.

The review will use multiple methods: curriculum audits, observations, surveys, and internal data analysis. Leaders said the review will examine Parkway‑developed instructional resources and compare district practices to evidence‑based research about effective social studies instruction rather than conducting a narrow peer‑district comparison.

Why it matters: district leaders said the work is intended to ensure that curriculum changes adopted after major state standards updates and post‑pandemic implementation now yield consistent outcomes for students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

What’s next: task forces will meet this fall; staff will collect and analyze data through the school year and report findings to the board in April via a memo as part of the district’s program‑evaluation process.