Math specialists told the Standards and Assessment Committee that the standards-writing process is proceeding and that writers have completed a full review of public comments.

Molly Basham, early-learning mathematics specialist, said writers completed public-feedback reviews during October and met in person with the committee. The secondary writing group met on November 5 and will meet again in November and December to finalize edits.

Mike Spencer, secondary math specialist, said writers are focusing on two issues raised repeatedly in public comments: clarifying honors-level expectations (adding standards or clarifying language for math 9 and math 10 to indicate depth versus mere breadth) and creating an additional STEM pathway for students who need a strong pre-calculus preparation without a full calculus pathway. "The committee chose to include an additional pathway'essentially our current integrated math 3 without extended calculus topics'to prepare students for precalculus and other STEM work rather than requiring calculus for every STEM-intending student," Spencer said.

Specialists said their goal is to publish a clean draft and a tracked-changes draft so committee members and the public can see the edits. Staff said they hope to release the draft in mid-December so board members can review it over the holidays and provide comments during the 30-day review period prior to formal action.

Speakers quoted in this article are drawn from the committee transcript and limited to those presenting the math update.