Robbinsdale Area Schools — Transcript
Thursday, October 8, 2026
Summer Curriculum Development and Alignment
English Language Learner (EL) and Multilingual Curriculum Support
Teacher Collaboration and Ownership in Curriculum Design
Votes (1)
Presentation on Summer Curriculum Development and Teacher Collaboration
Superintendent Stalin introduced the teaching and learning team, led by Maria Roberts, to present the results of summer curriculum work. Dr. Dan Bourwell detailed the alignment of state standards, development of learning targets, and creation of sample assessments and pacing guides for subjects like 12th grade government. Dr. Megan Schmidt then showcased work on sheltered English language development and literacy courses, including adapting the 'Wit and Wisdom' resource for multilingual learners with differentiated scaffolds, and realigning Spanish immersion curricula. The team highlighted benefits such as cross-building teacher collaboration and increased teacher ownership in curriculum design for implementation.
Notable Quotes (5)
I am delighted tonight to have a group of folks who have been working uh with adults throughout the summer in order to help prepare and continue to improve the curriculum uh and the work that we're doing in the classroom.
the goal of this summer work was to provide tier one content and pedagogical alignment across the buildings and to develop and implement guaranteed viable curriculum for all students with tier one differentiation.
what we're working towards is having every teacher who teaches this class to teach it in the same unit in roughly the same time period with the same pace. So that way the collaboration can exist with the teachers.
What's different are the scaffolds. And so that's what we helped... So we talked about here are all the different supports that would be would be appropriate for a student at that language proficiency level.
it allows us to have cross building collaboration... it also gives the teachers an ownership in the curriculum because we can um produce these documents all day long but um if they are not something that teachers feel an ownership in then then they don't often get implemented in the classroom.
Ordinances & Resolutions (8)
Core educational benchmarks used for aligning curriculum in subjects like 12th grade government.
Student-accessible statements derived from state standards to guide instruction.
Optional resource for teachers to ensure consistent instructional pace and content coverage.
Curricular outlines developed for sheltered English language development and English language literacy courses.
A knowledge-based curricular resource adapted with scaffolds for multilingual learners.
Specific courses designed for secondary English learners, developed during the summer work.
Courses for middle and high school students developing foundational literacy skills, developed during the summer work.
Future goal to create comprehensive curriculum documents for all courses.