At EL Education, Crew is two things: it is both a culture that impels all members of a school community to work together, and a structure for daily or weekly meetings where students build meaningful relationships with peers and their Crew leader, reflect on and monitor academic progress, and focus on habits of character. 

We also realize that planning Crew can be an exhilarating but heavy lift for teachers. For that reason, EL Education is in the early stages of creating a "third thing" for Crew: a daily Crew Curriculum for grades 9–12 that teachers can use and adapt within their Crew structures. 

The Crew Curriculum is aligned with EL Education’s Character Framework and the text We Are Crew: A Teamwork Approach to School Culture. The curriculum uses the three components of the EL Education Character Framework—becoming effective learners, becoming ethical people, and contributing to a better world—as the overarching structure for lessons that foster purpose, agency, and belonging. This comprehensive approach to Crew Curriculum integrates social-emotional learning and character growth with academic learning and planning for the postsecondary journey. 

We will pilot a subset of 9-12 Crew Curriculum lessons in the fall of 2023 from August 1st through November 30th. This subset represents two months worth of lessons at each grade level (24 lessons per grade level). 

1. Empower secondary Crew leaders to provide high-impact Crew experiences for high school students and support postsecondary planning.

2. Get feedback on the curriculum’s content and structure, as well as teacher and student experience, to inform the full curriculum build-out. Especially:

   • Relevance and engagement with older adolescent students 

   • Thoughts on beginning of the year content (Month 1) 

   • Thoughts on postsecondary planning content (Month 2)

   • Adapting for use based on school and Crew context: fitting within school schedules, making relevant to varying Crew student demographics, and combining with other materials that are utilized during Crew 

3. Gather information that will inform product delivery (i.e. format) and professional learning for the full K–12 product.

• August: 

  • 8/1/23: Month 1 lessons released 

• September: 

  • 9/1/23: Month 2 lessons released 

• October: 

  • 1st teacher survey sent out 

• November: 

  • 2nd teacher survey sent out 

  • School leader survey sent out

  • Share requested data

  • 11/30/23: deadline to implement Crew lessons and submit survey data to EL Education

• Materials Use: The most important requirement is that teachers do their best to teach at least three thirty-minute Crew Curriculum lessons per week in the fall of 2023 (24 lessons total) and that school schedules allow for this usage. We realize that some adaptation and flexibility may be necessary. 

• Feedback: We ask that piloting teachers and schools provide EL Education with substantive feedback as follows:

  • Online Teacher Survey (once a month, two total)

  • Online School Leader Survey (once at the conclusion of the pilot)

  • If conditions allow: classroom observations or in-person focus groups 

  • Teacher and Student Demographic Data

  • Assessment Data

School leaders and teachers should review the resources on the Preparing to Use the 9-12 Crew Curriculum document. This document includes four preparation steps prior to utilizing the curriculum materials: 

1. Grounding in the Purpose of Crew. 

2. Understanding the Format of the 9-12 Crew Curriculum

   • See the Navigating the 9-12 Crew Curriculum document for screenshots that provide an overview of the materials that are part of the curriculum as well as the components of each lesson plan. 

3. Prioritizing Staff Crew.

4. Making Scheduling and Planning Decisions.