Verona Board of Ed Discusses 2013-14 Curriculum Update

The Verona Board of Education received a curriculum update for the 2013-14 school year from three district administrators during Tuesday night's meeting.

The three administrators, Director of Instructional Studies Liz Jewett, Director of Instructional studies, Supervisor of Math and Science Nicole Santora and Supervisor of Humanities Sumit Bangia who outlined areas of focus and how they fit in with the district’s newly drafted five-year plan.

“We recently have the implementation of the common core state standards for literacy and mathematics,” said Jewett. “We still have the New Jersey core curriculum content standards for our other subjects and we are looking at national standards as well for science.”

One major shift in curriculum is to incorporate informational reading in all subjects and not just English. By graduation, 70 percent of reading should be informational based, said Bangia.

“Literacy is going to be incorporated in their science classes, social studies classes and their tech classes,” she said.

Santora highlighted the changes in mathematics, including the consolidation of fifth grade math, which means there is only one level of fifth grade math for all incoming fourth graders.

The main reason behind the decision, she said, is because the common core believes that students need to get the foundation for algebra and take their time instead of rushing through it to cover more material.

In order to align their curriculum to the next generation of national science standards, the district is looking into more opportunities for  (STEM) classes.

The district will now be offering robotics in computer science and pre-calculus honors —as well as physics honors classes, both provided through grants from the Verona Foundation for Educational Excellence.

Students also participated in STEM Day at Bergen Community College in January. While there, students attended hands-on workshops that demonstrated how industries use science, technology, engineering and math to answer the needs and demands of daily living.

The district will also be implementing a new program called engineering by design, which is based on problem solving.

“Students create, invent and solve problems,” said Jewett. “We have decided to transition to that type of program.”

The new program will be implemented for grades three and four in the 2013-14 school year and first- and second-grade students will see the program the following year, she said.

Additionally, the presentation included discussions of online textbooks for algebra I, geometry and algebra II. Each one is interactive and also has a live chat option available to students if they need additional help.

“The takeaways are that we have a process, a way to measure the process and actionable items to do so,” said board vice president Michael Unis. “Those three things would be aligned to state, district and even some granular level of what’s happening amongst students in classrooms.”