Pennridge presents five-year curriculum renewal cycle; K–2 foundations tied to early reading gains

Jennifer Bloom, Pennridge School District director of teaching and learning, presented a draft five‑year curriculum renewal cycle to the board’s curriculum committee and outlined steps intended to pace research, pilots, purchases and implementation across K–12.

Bloom said the cycle groups work into five sequential years — awareness, development, writing, implementation and monitoring — so large adoptions are limited to specific years and can be budgeted in advance. "This cycle … facilitates a K to 12 perspective, and it allows us to limit large adoptions to specific years for each of the different core areas," Bloom said.

The proposal includes a sample sequencing that would place subject-area reviews on a rotating schedule so the district will not face multiple large purchases in the same year. Bloom told board members the cycle is a draft and that administrators will form committees and refine which grades or bands (for example K–8 versus 9–12) move together.

Why it matters

Administrators said the cycle is intended to reduce frequent, ad‑hoc textbook and program purchases and to align curriculum review with the district’s strategic goals. Bloom also said the plan builds in flexibility for state mandates that require quicker action.

K–2 Foundations data

Meg Burke, the district’s newly introduced reading and language arts supervisor, presented three years of cohort STAR benchmark data tied to the K–2 Foundations program. Burke compared a 2022–23 cohort that had no Foundations instruction, a 2023–24 cohort with one year of Foundations, and the current third‑grade cohort that received Foundations in K–2. "We cut our urgent intervention kids in half from 8 to 4%," Burke said, citing the end‑of‑year STAR benchmark for the cohort she reviewed.

Burke described the analysis as longitudinal and attributable to a mix of program implementation and increased local capacity. She said the work relied on staff: "We have 433 students in that cohort with 7 instructional coaches, 10 reading specialists, and 55 teachers," she said. Burke also stressed the need to monitor multiple data points (fall/winter/spring benchmarks and other measures) rather than a single test.

Supervisors’ updates

District supervisors gave brief status reports tied to the renewal cycle. Science supervisors said K–5 curriculum writing is under way to align with the state’s science standards and that the district will shift some elementary benchmarks from the CDT to the LinkIt assessment platform so the district has consistent, year‑round metrics. Math and social studies supervisors reported benchmark and assessment work to improve common assessments and grading consistency across grade bands. The social studies supervisor said middle‑school text‑dependent analysis (TDA) tasks will be entered into LinkIt this year for the first time.

Process and next steps

Bloom said administrators will separate the district’s current "program improvement" filing into three clearer processes — curriculum proposal (new course/program), curriculum revision, and renewal — and planned to return drafts of those processes and the renewal cycle in October. Bloom also invited board members to the district’s Harvest Your Learning professional‑development event on Oct. 20, an internal teacher‑led conference intended to share classroom strategies.

Ending

Supervisors said they will return with refined timelines, additional data points and program‑specific recommendations; the curriculum committee’s next meeting was scheduled for Oct. 6. Board members asked for continued data on Foundations and for regular progress reports on any proposed adoptions.