Starting Friday the Renton School District will begin sending twice weekly updates to teachers about progress made with the implementation of standards-based instructional materials.

In recent months, teachers have expressed their frustrations with the lack of support for aligning curriculum with the new national reading, writing and math standards adopted by the state. In a School Board study session Jan. 14, administrators announced a plan to be more transparent with their work and updated the Renton School Board on their progress.

Administration is working with different obstacles and conditions in each of the school buildings and teacher frustrations are the result of a combination of things, Melanie Strey said. She is the director of standards-based instruction for the elementary schools.

“Which is why we’re moving to our update twice a week to all grade levels to let them know about this work,” she said. “We’re working on it and to give them kind of the short-term, here’s what we’re working on now, but here’s where we want to go.”

In their presentation, administrators said that the “standards are the ends” and “the curriculum is the means” to this work. This means that the standards are what the students are expected to learn and the curriculum is the collection of resources used to help the students meet the standards.

When Washington formally adopted the Common Core State Standards in July of 2011, there were no funds designated for curriculum adoptions and limited funds for professional learning. There was also no existing plan for transition to the new state standards. These issues, along with the district’s inability to require teachers to attend district-provided professional development, no accountability for using district adopted curriculum, a lack of district facilitators to lead the work and separate and varied curriculum for special education students, created problems at the outset, according to the district.

In 2011 only 47 percent of courses had course guides in place that aligned with the state standards at that time, not the new Common Core standards. The current reality is that just 30 percent of the curriculum is aligned to the Common Core State Standards.

“We’re going to have to get those percentages up,” said Dr. Tammy Campbell, assistant superintendent of learning and teaching.

The goal for her department is to get the percentages up in the 90s.

“We know we have room for improvement,” she said.

The district is currently working out the power standards, which are the Common Core State Standards, which must be taught at every grade level from preschool to 12th grade. These standards must be taught and assessed so that students graduate on-time with choices, like pursuing a college degree.

There is a 125-member leadership team of teachers and administrators working on the power standards.

“Where we’re struggling is that we went from just a couple years ago having this opportunity to pull all second-grade teachers to the district and provide them professional learning and hear their concerns and answer their questions,” said Strey. “We went from that model to now having the sub shortage, which means we can maybe only pull one teacher from the grade level, or one teacher from a school, or it’s after school and they (teachers) have commitments.”

Administrators are strategizing and doing site visits to make teachers feel supported and to increase communication. The new weekly updates on standards-based instructional materials are part of that strategy.

“So I think that strategy is going to help us and help our teachers really know that we are, on their behalf, wanting to serve them and support them,” said Strey.

The time horizon for aligning courses to the Common Core Standards is three to four years to get up to 90 percent, Campbell said.

It can take up to a year and a half to adopt materials, but administrators said that they are committed to working with teachers to ensure the right materials are adopted.

PERFECT STORM

Teachers are feeling stress and anxiety because of a “perfect storm” of issues and pressures they are experiencing, according to administrators. They’ve had to contend with the Common Core State Standards in 2011, new teacher and principal evaluations in 2013, as well as requirements for the Race to the Top in 2013 and now Smarter Balance Assessments in 2015, the Common Core assessments.

“I think the stress that the teachers are feeling is real, but it’s the why,” said Campbell citing all of these factors.

Teachers have also had to adjust to a number of new leaders at the district and school level.

“We know that they’re frustrated and we hear this,” said Strey.

The district has identified its short- and long-term plans for this year concerning pre-kindergarten through 12th grade English Learning Arts and mathematics.

Administration will have to start thinking outside the box to figure out how to get teachers the professional development support they need, Strey said.

“We feel the urgency; we know that this is really important work,” she said.