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District staff outlines move to assessment-based curriculum, cites $200,000 in software subscriptions
Summary
At an East Allegheny School District board meeting, district staff presented a plan to align course grades with state standards, expand diagnostic assessments and pare back supplemental instructional software — noting roughly $200,000 in annual subscriptions and $64,000 spent on recent social-studies materials.
District staff member Sean Tomaszewski told the East Allegheny School District board that the district will move toward an assessment-based curriculum infrastructure intended to align course grades with PSSA and Keystone standards and to improve tracking of student growth.
"We have over 300 curriculum documents in EdInsight right now, but it doesn't seem like there's really any practical manifestation of those curriculum documents in practice," Tomaszewski said, arguing the district should base curriculum development on assessments and use those results to shape instruction.
Tomaszewski outlined three core components: an assessment-based curriculum structure, a professional-learning plan grounded in classroom practice, and curricular materials aligned to standards. He cited diagnostic and benchmarking tools the district plans to expand, including Acadience for early literacy and MAP assessments for broader diagnostics, and said the district will pilot or implement additional diagnostic systems in coming months.
Tomaszewski also reviewed subscription costs and materials spending. "When I looked at the software subscriptions for the educational side of the house for the 24-25 academic year, it's almost $200,000," he said, noting some contracts are multiyear while others (examples he named include BrainPOP and H�puzzle in the transcript) are under review for implementation and use. He said social-studies materials budgeted at more than $100,000 ultimately required about $64,000 in purchases after enrollment review, and described steps to source consumable materials more cheaply.
Superintendent Joseph Savinda praised the presentation and said the assessment-based approach will allow building leadership and the district to report student performance and growth to the board. "That's information that we can share as well as our kids, undoubtedly will grow from greater structure," Savinda said.
Tomaszewski said the plan will be shared with faculty during back-to-school professional development days and through instructional planning rounds at building level, and that principals will set goals and report on progress on a bimonthly basis. He invited questions and offered to provide additional detail in his written board report.
The board took no formal action on the curriculum presentation at this meeting; the staff report will be used to guide classroom-level professional development and future reporting to the board.
