Pine‑Richland presents 303-course curriculum review; science units reworked for new Pennsylvania standards

Pine‑Richland School District administrators told the Academic Achievement Committee on June 9 that they have completed a second year of implementing a board‑approved curriculum plan and will seek final approval of the course batch at the district's next board meeting.

The presentation covered a districtwide review of 303 courses, which staff labeled as "no change," "minor change" or "major change." Administrators said most K–12 science courses were flagged for major change because they are being reworked to align with Pennsylvania's new STEEL science standards.

"This is year 2 of implementation of our board approved curriculum plan, and it's year 1 of bringing all of the courses forward again with no change, minor change, or major change," an administrator identified in the meeting as Dr. Pasquinelli said. "If there are certain courses that anybody wants to go deeper into, we could pull those courses and then have separate meetings."

Why it matters: district staff framed the work as an effort to make classroom unit plans more consistent and transparent for families. The board will be asked to approve a large batch of courses; if members want deeper review of particular courses, staff said those could be pulled for separate discussion before final posting to the district website.

Science changes and assessment timeline

Administrators said most science courses are being restructured to follow the STEEL standards's phenomenon‑based, inquiry approach. Staff described STEEL as emphasizing disciplinary core ideas plus science and engineering practices and cross‑cutting skills; K–6 science in many buildings already uses resources (for example, Amplify Science) that align in part with the new approach.

"So the STEEL terminology uses disciplinary core ideas. That's the content. That's the meat of what students need to know and understand. How they get to those understandings is more of the inquiry based, phenomenon based learning experience," Dr. Pasquinelli said. He added staff expect the state's first STEEL‑aligned assessment data (administered this year at grade 5) to inform any further tweaks.

Scheduling, professional development and resources

Administrators said the district rolled the curriculum revision out in stages during in‑service time and relied on teacher representatives, Academic Leadership Council members and building administrators to produce consistent unit templates. One presenter said the work amounted to "about the equivalent of two full days" of in‑service time this year (one full day plus two half days) and that staff hope the process will become more efficient in future cycles.

Staff also reviewed the district's resource policies that govern textbooks and instructional materials. Policy 108 identifies primary resources that require board approval and a 30‑day display; Policy 109 identifies resources approved at the administrative level with more flexibility. Administrators said both primary and administrative resources will be listed in the board‑approved curriculum materials for families to see.

Board next steps and public posting

Committee members asked for clarity on individual course templates (for example, how units move between grades) and on how learning goals are represented for parents. Administrators said they will finalize the cleaned templates, post the board‑approved materials to the district website after approval, and bring any courses the board requests for deeper review to a future meeting.

As one administrator put it: "If there's a handful that we want to look at more closely, then just please let us know."