Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Curriculum topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
District leaders describe Guaranteed Viable Curriculum; teachers produced 314 unit plans in first seven months
Summary
Instructional leaders told the board the district's Guaranteed Viable Curriculum (GVC) is a teacher-generated, standards-aligned resource that now contains 314 unit plans and menus created by 71 teachers across 160 collaboration days; leaders emphasized the tool is not a scripted mandate but a living resource with common assessments for calibration.
District instructional leaders presented the Guaranteed Viable Curriculum (GVC), a districtwide curriculum resource built by teacher teams to give teachers standards-aligned unit plans, progressions and common assessments.
Presenters said the GVC began with a teacher survey to identify volunteers and needs, followed by site preparation and team formation. The resource, currently organized in Google spreadsheets and hyperlinked to standards, is intended as a "one-stop shop" for grade-level or course-level planning and to provide vertical alignment across grades.
"Everything that's underlined is a hyperlink," one presenter said while demonstrating how unit templates and standards guides lead teachers to unit plans and resource menus. Leaders said the documents are teacher-generated and meant to be updated continuously rather than printed and shelved.
In the first seven months district leaders said 71 teachers participated on GVC teams, contributing to about 160 collaboration days and producing 314 unit plans and menus. The work included training from an external provider (Solution Tree) and multiple grade-level and content teams that developed progressions, common assessments and unit templates.
Leaders emphasized the GVC is not intended as a mandated script: teachers will retain instructional autonomy even as teams consider a single summative unit assessment for calibration and district-level conversations about where students are meeting standards.
Board members asked whether the resource will be required. Presenters said they do not plan to mandate instruction through the GVC; however, they said common summative assessments are desirable to create districtwide comparability and to inform collaborative conversations about student results.
Presenters outlined next steps: expand content-area teams (noting gaps in some ELA and social-studies teams for grades 3'5), continue to build units for secondary vertical alignment, and support new teachers with ready-made unit menus and assessments.
The presentation positioned the GVC as an instructional foundation for opening new schools and staffing transitions, and leaders asked for ongoing board support for the work.
