Frederick County math team outlines statewide-aligned plan, schedules multi-year rollout of Ready Classroom and Reveal Math

Frederick County Public Schools officials told the Curriculum & Instruction Committee that the district has submitted a multi‑draft, preK–12 comprehensive mathematics plan to the state and is advancing local implementation of high‑quality instructional materials, including Ready Classroom in elementary grades and Reveal Math in secondary grades.

The plan’s authors said the work aligns with a statewide math policy the Maryland State Board adopted on March 25, 2025, and with the Maryland College and Career Ready Standards; final local revisions to the plan are scheduled for submission after additional state feedback later this summer.

The comprehensive plan formalizes the district’s goals, metrics and six priorities — including early learning, a multi‑tiered system of academic supports, equitable instruction, professional learning, and community engagement — and ties progress monitoring to both state (MCAP) and local diagnostic measures such as I‑Ready and district common assessments. “This plan is not only a formalization of the work that we value and are already doing,” said Stacy Sisler, FCPS secondary math curriculum specialist.

District staff described the current local instructional materials and implementation timeline. Ready Classroom is the adopted K–5 core program; FCPS began Ready Classroom with grades 3–5 in 2023–24 and added kindergarten through grade 2 for the current school year. Reveal Math is the adopted secondary core program for grades 6 through Algebra 2; the district said Reveal and its partner ALEKS are bundled under the Reveal contract and available to students in those courses. Ashley Hawkins, a school‑based secondary math specialist at Urbana Middle School, described Reveal and ALEKS as more coherent than earlier, fragmented resources and said the platforms help families support students at home.

Staff stressed that high‑quality materials are only one element of successful implementation. The district has school‑based elementary and secondary math specialists who lead school professional learning, conduct classroom visits and support new teachers. Sisler said implementation monitoring will include both informal and formal classroom walkthroughs and measures drawn from vendor partners and district walkthrough tools.

On assessment and timing, FCPS officials said they use a layered assessment system: classroom formative checks, district common (core module) assessments, diagnostics such as I‑Ready and ALEKS, and the state MCAP assessment. Sisler told the committee that meaningful district‑level impact from a new core program generally appears after a multi‑year rollout: “Any kind of implementation takes 3 to 5 years,” she said, and the district expects a clearer signal around year three of full implementation. District presenters added that the ALEKS implementation — in its fourth year in FCPS — has produced a measurable correlation between student interaction with the personalized ALEKS “pie” and other assessment proficiency when students complete about 50–60 percent of their pie.

Committee members asked how the state provides feedback on the plan. Sisler said MSDE (the Maryland State Department of Education), working with a Johns Hopkins review team and other expert reviewers, supplied a first round of feedback on the district’s preK–5 submission in an emailed document with highlighted areas for growth; FCPS submitted a revised preK–5 section in January and will receive a second round of feedback after expert review team school visits. The district plans a final submission at the end of the summer after that feedback.

Board members also questioned how FCPS evaluates outcomes and compares neighboring districts. Sisler said the district has not conducted a formal cross‑district causal analysis but noted MSDE has visited FCPS schools that showed significant MCAP gains. School representatives described local data‑use practices — common module assessments, classroom walkthroughs and ALP (accelerated learning process) teams — that feed central office reviews.

Staff described professional learning structures designed to build teacher fluency with the new materials, including systemic professional learning in August and January, quarterly collaboration nights, and school‑level coaching. The district emphasized equitable supports built into the adopted materials (vocabulary instruction, discourse routines and language development handbooks) and said it will continue to refine how materials support multilingual learners and students with disabilities.

Next steps: FCPS will continue to revise its comprehensive math plan based on MSDE feedback, refine measures of implementation quality in year three of rollout, and report progress to the committee at a future meeting.

Votes at a glance: No formal ordinance or resolution votes were recorded on the math presentation itself. Staff requested committee feedback and scheduling changes; the committee later registered consensus to approve the March meeting minutes (see separate article).