Committee forwards humanities and elective course revisions, discusses AP psychology alignment

At the June 15 Instructional Committee meeting, the district’s 6–12 humanities coordinator presented revisions to multiple humanities courses and the committee agreed to forward each to the full board for consent.

Mrs. Carrie Laudio outlined Grade 9 'Literary Themes and Genres,' a four‑unit course that emphasizes identity, literary analysis, research, and explicit grammar instruction, and described shared text collections, paired nonfiction and multimedia to build background, and a required lesson sequence to promote equity across classrooms.

Laudio then described Grade 10 World Literature, noting an emphasis on contemporary global authors and a shift toward scaffolded argument writing culminating in research and presentation tasks aligned to Grade 9 learning. She also presented the Creative Writing elective (grades 9–12) built around production, revision and student performance.

For the high‑school Psychology elective, Laudio said the course is aligned to the American Psychological Association’s national standards and arranged in eight units with culminating case‑study clinician tasks. Dr. Reid asked whether psychology is a required course and about grade placement; Mrs. Lour clarified course sequencing and noted the district also offers AP Psychology. "We also offer AP psychology," Lour said, explaining that staffing had included AP and CCP‑1 teachers reviewing overlap.

The committee took consensus votes to forward items 4.4 (Grade 9), 4.5 (Grade 10), 4.6 (Creative Writing) and 4.7 (Psychology) to the full board consent agenda.