What to know
Sarah Ballew, the district’s director of teaching, learning and professional development, told the board the district will begin to implement the Bluebonnet curriculum in math for grades K-5, while it will use Savvas Learning Company, a learning solutions program, for reading/language arts for the 2025-26 school year.
The district previously approved the Bluebonnet Learning and Savvas programs at its March 19 meeting.
“The implementation of two curriculums is a heavy lift, and there’s lots of parts and pieces to consider in an [Open Education Resource] transition plan,” Ballew said.
Ballew said the district will need to develop a plan of how to store and implement the materials, and it will train teachers this summer through a collaboration with the Region 6 Education Service Center.
Digging deeper
Meghan Arthur, director of federal programs, compliance and grants for WISD, said the Interactive Online Learning grant is meant to “support the implementation of effective interactive online learning models,” according to the TEA’s website.
Additionally, the district’s service center was awarded $42,000 for professional development to implement Bluebonnet math, Arthur said.
With the program implementation beginning in the summer, the district will use the grant to provide incentives or allotments for teachers to participate in professional development, Ballew said.
The grant included a total of about $400,000, but Arthur said the district could only use the portion for the math implementation, as the remainder was for the Bluebonnet reading and language arts materials that it is not using.
