District unveils 10-step curriculum review to guide upcoming math, ELA purchases

Megan, a district staff member, presented a draft 10-step curriculum review process at the Sartell-St. Stephen School District June work session to guide selection, vetting and implementation of instructional materials across grade levels.

Megan said the proposal is “nothing groundbreaking or new,” but described it as a systematic framework to ensure materials align to state standards and address student learning gaps. The process is intended to coordinate multi-year adoption so the district can plan purchases, budget appropriately and prioritize resources that research supports.

The plan maps a 10-stage cycle intended to roughly parallel the state’s standard-setting cadence. Megan described stage 1 as “research, planning and design,” in which teams break down newly issued standards and develop priority learning targets and proficiency scales. Stages 2–4 include contacting vendors, conducting a needs analysis and piloting samples with a curriculum advisory group; stages after selection emphasize implementation, monitoring and adjustment, with later stages focused on supplemental materials and iteration.

The district is preparing for a cluster of state-standard rollouts: Megan noted that the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) created new math standards in 2022 and that math standards are scheduled for implementation in 2027; she said science, ELA, social studies and math are coming in quick succession and represent “four really big purchases” over consecutive years, which complicates budgeting.

To reduce risk, the district plans early implementation pilots. Megan said she intends to have elementary math implemented by an early-adopter group a year before state-scheduled implementation so that teacher “experts” will be ready to support broader rollout. She told the board that the goal is to call vendors for samples by January so pilot selection can proceed in time for early-implementation work in the 2026–27 school year.

Megan described the curriculum advisory process used for the district’s prior CKLA selection, which involved roughly 28–30 teachers and parents and produced documentation the team considered convincing evidence for the final choice. The draft guide includes a larger “curriculum needs assessment” (pages 7–27 of the packet) for major adoptions and a scaled-down vetting rubric (pages 33–36) for smaller online or supplemental resources. She emphasized that purchases—even those paid for by individual teachers—should go through district vetting so the curriculum remains “guaranteed and viable.”

Board members asked how supplemental materials would be approved; Megan said supplemental resources would go through building administrators and a building-level MTSS (multi-tiered system of supports) process. She emphasized that while parts of the cycle could be accelerated, large adoptions are intentionally paced to align with the 10-year standard cycle.

Megan also flagged growing costs tied to online instructional resources and recommended that departments plan funding and payment responsibilities in advance. The packet instructs content specialists on facilitating team reviews and includes requisition forms to standardize purchase requests.

What’s next: vendors will be contacted in January for elementary math samples; pilot classrooms will conduct early implementation, followed by monitoring and adjustment across subsequent years. The district plans to reuse the documented needs-assessment approach used for CKLA for the math selection.

Ending: The board did not vote on the curriculum process at the work session; staff asked board members to submit follow-up questions by email as they continue timeline and budget planning.