Guaranteed & Viable Curriculum in Hampton City Schools

As part of the transition in leadership during the 2015-2106 school year, Dr. Jeffery Smith, HCS Superintendent, embarked upon a Look, Listen, and Learn tour. Based on conversations held with stakeholders during this tour, Dr. Smith noted the area of ensuring a guaranteed and viable curriculum as one of the opportunities to enhance teaching and learning in Hampton City Schools. As stated in Dr. Smith’s Look, Listen, and Learn Report to the School Board and Community (January 2016, p. 4), “An important starting point of engagement for academic excellence for every child, every day, whatever it takes, is ensuring that our staff has a process in place which will enable us to consistently focus on our core business of teaching and learning.” Ensuring a guaranteed and viable curriculum is an essential part of the teaching and learning process. 

So what does guaranteed and viable curriculum mean in Hampton City Schools? Let’s break each term down in greater detail. 

"Guaranteed"

First and foremost, a guaranteed curriculum in HCS means that teachers have a shared understanding of the essential intended learning outcomes for students. For example, while planning a new unit of instruction, the grade level/department takes time to discuss the essential intended learning outcomes prior to teaching. During this discussion, ideas/viewpoints/misconceptions are shared, and teachers leave the meeting with a clear understanding of the intent of the curriculum/standards. The team has made a guarantee that they are on the same page when it comes to a shared understanding of the essential learning outcomes.

A second key component to ensuring a guaranteed curriculum in HCS is that the curriculum is actually taught by teachers. It is important to note that the state’s Curriculum Framework Documents are not the HCS curriculum. HCS curriculum documents are created by experienced HCS teachers. While these individuals work to make certain that that the contents of the state’s documents are embedded in the HCS curriculum, our curriculum writers will often include greater details to support teachers. The division is making a guarantee to its stakeholders that there is a tight alignment with the Standards of Learning and that students are being taught the HCS written curriculum.  

The third key component to ensuring a guaranteed curriculum in HCS is that all students have access to learning the essential intended learning outcomes. It is important to note that not everything in the curriculum is essential. There will be times, for example, when students need to be pulled for remediation. This should not, however, occur during the time when these students’ peers are being taught the essential learning outcomes—those skills and sets of knowledge that are important to the discipline and indicators of success in that grade level/course. Schools are responsible for making a guarantee that students are exposed to the essential learning outcomes.

"Viable"

First, ensuring a viable curriculum in HCS means that teachers believe the written curriculum is structured in such a manner that it can be considered a viable tool that is used to support the instructional planning process. When HCS teachers review the various manifestations of our curriculum (e.g., pacing guides, curriculum templates, written curriculum, assessments, sample lesson plans, etc.), it is important that they see the viability of these documents. Teachers should also note the logical alignment to the Standards of Learning. 

Another key component to ensuring a viable curriculum in HCS is that the intended curriculum (e.g., written curriculum) is taught in such a way that it is conducive to learning. For example, time to teach is an important factor in ensuring a viable curriculum. Is the appropriate amount of time being spent teaching the essential intended learning outcomes? 

The third key component to ensuring a viable curriculum in HCS is that the curriculum incorporates high-yield instructional strategies. As noted in the HCS Instructional Framework, the CIA Department has identified 6 instructional priorities that speak to lessons that are aligned, purposeful, incorporate higher-order thinking, focus on active learning, are vocabulary-rich, and use feedback to improve learning. To date, four (4) high-yield instructional strategies have been identified to support these six (6) instructional priorities. While a number of these evidence-based strategies exist, HCS has begun the work of embedding activities into the curriculum to support the following high-yield instructional strategies: summarizing and note-taking, questioning, nonlinguistic representations, and collaboration.