Andover Public Schools Paid Curriculum Consultants $92,000

ANDOVER, MA -- Andover Public Schools paid $92,000 to two outside consultants to implement a new social studies program, according to contracts and invoices released under the Massachusetts Public Records law. The payments include $56,500 to Kurt Wootton and $35,500 to Tina Blythe, who were contracted to run curriculum days for elementary school teachers outlining the implementation of the "One Community, One Nation" social studies curriculum. Blythe was paid a fee of $2,000 per day, while Wootton was paid a flat fee for four, three-day training sessions for teachers.

The $92,000 is just for the consultants and their expenses, and does not include curriculum fees or money spent for teachers to attend the sessions or for substitutes to cover their classes when they overlapped with class time. Wootton ran programs June 19-21, October 9-11, Nov. 27-29 of last year and Feb. 5-7. Blythe ran a series of curriculum planning days, some of which overlapped with Wootton's sessions.

An Andover Public Schools Website outlining "One Community, One Nation" said it was developed in Hudson Public Schools in Massachusetts and the Jefferson County Public Schools, in Louisville, KY. Andover Public Schools Superintendent Sheldon Berman was superintendent of Jefferson County Schools for four years and, before that, superintendent in Hudson for 14 years.

"The two consultants are highly regarded experts in their field, with associations from Brown and Harvard universities. They provided the APS with their services prior to Dr. Berman’s arrival in the district through the New England Arts Literacy grant," said Nicole L. Kieser, a spokesperson for Andover Public Schools. "Their services have been exceptional and the feedback from the staff and faculty has been outstanding."

Wootton is one of the founding directors of the Arts Literacy Project in the Education Department at Brown University. Blythe is an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a project director at Harvard Project Zero.

"One Community, One Nation is a professional development program being utilized at APS and many other school districts in Massachusetts have expressed interest in partnering with us," Kieser said.

"One Community, One Nation" is being implemented in grades K through 5 across the district. In a January 23 newsletter to students and parents, the school district described the curriculum as one "that integrates literacy and the arts around the concepts of community, culture and civics." The district said in the newsletter it was working collaboratively with other districts in Massachusetts to develop the curriculum.

"Districts as diverse as the Hudson Public Schools in Hudson, Massachusetts, the Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Andover Public Schools in Andover, Massachusetts, have created a powerful new framework for elementary social studies," the APS Website outlining the program says. "This curriculum enables students to experience the value of community and culture and empowers them to participate in making a difference for themselves and their community."

Read more about "One Community, One Nation" on an Andover Public Schools Website.

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Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).