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Hinsdale District 86 prepares for Common Core standards
Updated: March 15, 2013 11:20AM
HINSDALE — District 86 officials are preparing to meet the Common Core standards next school year.
“Professional development is ongoing with department chairs and team leaders,” District 86 Superintendent Nicholas Wahl told the School Board. “Implementation of common core curriculum audits are being done by department with implementation planned for next year.”
Only four states have not adopted the standards, the purpose of which is “to raise the academic bar for curricular rigor, which would allow students to compete globally and safeguard the economic interest of the U.S., according to Common Core,” Assistant Superintendent Bruce Law said.
Students will be expected to learn material at a younger age. Algebra, for example, would be taught in eighth grade.
District 86 is in good shape, Law said, because the curriculum already is “at a very high level.”
But elementary school districts may have to make greater adjustments.
Topics will be pushed back one or two years, Law said, “so what students are learning in fourth grade will be pushed back to second grade.”
In District 86, teams of teachers and administrators are evaluating where “the curriculum meets or even exceeds the Common Core standards and where there are gaps,” Law said.
