Board hears middle‑school ELA adoption pilot; committee voted 25‑0 to recommend the curriculum

Summary

District presenters described a middle‑school ELA curriculum pilot that teachers reported increased student writing and depth of thinking; a 25‑member adoption committee and classroom pilots led to a unanimous recommendation to adopt the resource, with supports for multilingual learners and integrated performance tasks.

The Vancouver School District presented a strategic‑plan‑linked recommendation to adopt a new middle‑school English language arts curriculum. Brian Graham and Rose Nelson described a committee of 25 (teachers, multilingual specialists, special‑education educators, counselors, administrators and parents) that reviewed five full curricula, ran a six‑week pilot in classrooms, and voted 25‑0 to recommend the selected curriculum. Presenters emphasized unit structure (whole‑class instruction, peer collaboration, independent inquiry), frequent performance tasks with multiple demonstration modalities, embedded supports for multilingual students and special education, and a professional learning rollout including training days and ongoing PLCs. Classroom teachers reported higher volumes of student writing, structured conversations to increase elaboration, scaffolded vocabulary supports and use of rubric‑aligned AI feedback in the My Perspectives platform as a formative tool.