Miss Bledsoe details full FOSS science adoption for Hermosa Valley grades 5'8

Miss Bledsoe, the district science presenter, told the Hermosa Beach City School District board the district will move to a full-scale implementation of the FOSS science curriculum for grades 5 through 8, emphasizing hands'on investigations and alignment with the Next Generation Science Standards.

"It is fully aligned with NGSS," Miss Bledsoe said, describing FOSS units as a sequence of phenomenon-driven introductions, investigations, data collection and reading that push students toward higher-order thinking. She told the board the district negotiated seven years of materials and supplies, which she said is "an incredible cost savings." The presentation highlighted formative assessment, lab notebooks as an instructional cornerstone and plans for interim assessments and a spring audit of implementation fidelity.

A 7th-grader who testified to the board, Lorenzo, described his experience: "I really like FOSS because it is very interactive and very fun to learn instead of, like, reading a book." Board members asked about storage of physical kits and opportunities for parent volunteers to assist with lab prep; staff said the budget includes time for teachers to organize materials and welcomed parent help. Superintendent Dr. Wildes noted Measure HV funds for new science classrooms and said the district will incorporate teacher and community input into lab design.

Next steps outlined to the board included classroom observations to measure fidelity, continued unit-level assessments to track student learning, a decision about contracted professional development versus building internal capacity, and using collaboration days and instructional rounds to support teachers.