CCAT Recap: Advisory Team Underway

Lakota’s new Community Curriculum Advisory Team (CCAT) is off and running. The team includes five community members appointed by the Board of Education and leaders from Lakota’s curriculum department.

Lori Brown, Lakota’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, oversees CCAT. “Every meeting has a proactive piece and a reactive piece,” she said. “And, every meeting ends with a recommendation to the curriculum team.”

Curriculum versus Instruction

Brown began the first meeting in May explaining the difference between curriculum and instruction.

Curriculum refers to the standards that are set for all public schools by the Ohio Department of Education. The standards set the expectations as to what students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade must have. The standards are set by both grade level and subject or content area.

In addition to the State’s standards, ODE also provides model curricula that districts and teachers can use or refer to as they determine how to apply the standards to their students’ learning. This leads to instruction.

As professionals in their field, Lakota’s teachers decide what resources and strategies they will use to teach their students the content outlined in the State’s standards. This may include using resources and strategies Lakota’s curriculum team has shared, or teachers may use their expertise to include their own.

How well the students are learning, and how much progress they are making in their learning, is assessed through Ohio’s State Tests. These results are components of the State Report Card which is released each fall for the previous school year. 

Proactive Decisions

The purpose of CCAT is to provide recommendations to Lakota’s curriculum leaders through a process that identifies specific curricular concerns or needs. In order to determine what priorities the group should set, the team suggested reaching out to the community in order to gather feedback about Lakota’s curriculum. 

The first step in this process will begin Aug. 1 through a community-wide ThoughtExchange. Through this online surveying tool, participants will be asked to share their opinion on what is working well with Lakota’s curriculum, what opportunities are there for improvement and what questions they have about the curriculum. Once answered, participants are asked to rate the thoughts of other participants based on how strongly they agree or disagree. The exchange will run for the entire month.

Additionally, the team has requested that the Board’s community engagement committee consider adding a curriculum community conversation to the schedule for the fall. The community engagement committee will meet in August to discuss the topics for the 2023-2024 school year.

Reactive Decisions

CCAT was created through the Board’s request for a curriculum audit during the last school year. As such, the team has also been charged with reviewing how questions or concerns about curriculum are submitted and reviewed.

For this first meeting, Brown shared the current process, which always encourages the starting point to be with the teacher involved. If the parent still has concerns or questions, the next step is to contact the building principal. Finally, a form is available through Lakota Listens that goes directly to Brown and her team. 

Based on CCAT’s recommendations, the Lakota Listens form has already been updated to request the nature of the concern as well as the type of material or situation that the concern applies to. When a form is submitted, Brown and her team will investigate the concern and address it with the parties involved. Brown will then share the concern and outcome with the CCAT members at the next meeting.