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District details midyear curriculum work: portrait of a graduate, STEAM, LETRS and standards-based grading
Summary
District administrators and directors gave a midyear update on curriculum and instruction, covering alignment to New York State standards, STEAM and arts programming, planned pilot work, LETRS teacher training and a multi-year move toward more consistent, equitable standards-based grading and revised report cards.
At the Jan. 23 West Irondequoit Board of Education meeting, district instructional leaders presented a midyear update on curriculum, instruction and implementation tied to the district’s management plan and the “portrait of a graduate” framework.
Dr. Dunton introduced the update and said the presentation would connect curriculum and instruction work to the district’s strategic plan. The Office of Instruction staff — including Kim, Orlando and Kelly Santura — described a range of initiatives from K–12 literacy to secondary humanities revisions.
Orlando described continuing STEAM and science work: “We are still in the process of building our curriculum or and in a lot of cases, just updating our curriculum 5 through 12 to better align with, current New York State standards,” he said, noting particular emphasis on preparing students for new state assessments and recent grants to modernize engineering equipment.
The humanities and world-language teams reported revisions at the 7–12 level and cross‑language curriculum maps for Level 2 language courses; the district is piloting revised Global 1 units and planning performance tasks tied to the portrait of a graduate. Kelly Santura and other staff outlined planned curriculum audits and communication to families as New York State moves toward a more unified transcript and diploma framework.
Leaders emphasized professional learning. The district plans in‑house LETRS (language and literacy) facilitator training after staff member Lindsay Porter completed LETRS facilitator training; the goal is to have broad K–12 staff trained by summer 2026 and to provide targeted spring training for grades 5–8 to support vocabulary and comprehension instruction.
A major topic was standards‑based and equitable grading. Kim and other staff outlined a multi‑phase approach: K–4 report card revisions, a shift to trimester reporting in elementary grades, homework guidance and clarified narrative/comment expectations. Kim said the district is developing exemplars and expects shorter, focused comments in report cards ("2 to 4 sentences per content area") to give parents clearer, consistent information.
The district will extend the work to grades 5–6 with an eye to aligning middle-school grading practices with secondary courses, and it is forming a 7–12 steering committee to build capacity and propose guidelines for consistent equitable grading at the secondary level. Board members asked about alignment with college entrance exams and career readiness; staff answered that curriculum aligns to state standards and advanced courses (AP or dual‑credit) adhere to College Board or partner-college expectations.
The program update closed with student-services and equity items: the department reported a 23–24 special education classification rate of 13 percent and noted comparative regional data; staff also said they are collecting and analyzing transition data across buildings for future planning.
Board members thanked the presenters and signaled further review at upcoming committee meetings and workshops.
