PEPPER PIKE, Ohio - The Orange Board of Education has approved the adoption of a new English/language arts curriculum for students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
On Monday (Dec. 9), the board approved a contract with the Benchmark Education Co. of New Rochelle, N.Y., for the required textbooks at a cost of about $315,742.
The new curriculum, called Benchmark Advance, will take effect starting next school year.
Sheli Amato, the district's director of curriculum, provided a report on the new curriculum to the board.
She had shared at the board's Nov. 4 meeting that an early literacy team of district educators had recommended adoption of the new curriculum.
The team is composed of 11 educators, including teachers in grades K-5, a literary coach and several reading intervention specialists.
Amato said Benchmark Advance has been implemented at 11 other school districts in Northeast Ohio, including Solon, Aurora, Hudson, Mayfield and Twinsburg.
Beachwood and Chagrin Falls schools are in the initial stages of implementation, she added.
Amato said she asked curriculum directors from some of the districts that have implemented Benchmark Advance if they have found the need to supplement the materials included in the new curriculum.
"The feedback at this point is no, they have not found a need to supplement," she said. "In fact, many curriculum directors told me that there is quite a bit of material in the Benchmark Advance program, and they needed to take the time to really look through that material and carefully plan their lessons because sometimes they felt there was more there than they could actually implement in their language arts time."
Other feedback from these curriculum directors, Amato said, included that they were happy about the ability to incorporate novel studies, that primary teachers were "really happy" with the big books that they get to share with younger readers, and vocabulary was described as a "big win."
Some districts that are transitioning from the Lucy Calkins Units of Study curriculum - which is what the Orange district currently uses - to the Benchmark Advance program found Benchmark "more rigorous," Amato said.
"The other thing several directors mentioned was the assessments in Benchmark were definitely more rigorous," she said.
"They do resemble the Ohio state test, and they start preparing students for that test at a very young age."
The assessments are time consuming, and some districts are working through how to manage them, Amato said.
"But when they look at the data that comes from those assessments, they find that there's a lot of information that helps teachers plan instruction for specific learners," she said.
Amato said the district's early literacy team selected a new version of the Benchmark Advance program.
"Because it's a new version, there's not a lot of research data that has been completed about it that is being recommended," she said.
"But what data was available was how students performed using the previous versions of Benchmark."
Amato showed the board bar graphs that indicated how students in other districts using Benchmark performed and how they showed growth "in various sizes of districts in various subgroups" after using the program.
"Since that study, the program has been updated twice," she said. "We could infer that since the program was not completely overhauled, and that the updates that were made were tweaks for improvement, that we may see those same results."
Board members expressed strong support of the new curriculum before voting to approve it.
Resolution for levy delayed
On the board's original agenda Monday was the second of two required resolutions to place a .95-mill, five-year Orange Community Education and Recreation (OCER) levy on the May 6 primary election ballot.
But that item was deleted from the agenda because the district does not yet have the necessary financial information related to the levy, Treasurer Todd Puster said.
"The (Cuyahoga) County Fiscal Office needs to make certification of the estimated amount of money the board will receive each year the levy is in place," Puster said.
"The county told me they haven't received the updated value information from the state for next year."
As a result, the county fiscal office asked the board to hold off on passing the second resolution until the county receives this information, Puster said.
Puster said the district hopes to have this information within a few days. The resolution will then be presented to the board for passage at its next meeting at 6 p.m. Jan. 13, he said.
The deadline for filing the issue with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections to place it on the May 6 ballot is in early February.
On Nov. 25, the board passed the first of the two resolutions needed to place the renewal levy on the ballot for voters in the district.
The current OCER levy expires Dec. 31, 2025.
Passage of the renewal - which would not increase millage or taxes - would ensure the continuation of OCER facilities, programs and services for all residents of the district through 2030.
The last renewal levy, in March 2020, passed by 77 percent.
If the levy passes, collection of the tax would begin in 2026.
Contract approved with NEOnet
In other action, the board approved a contract with Northeast Ohio Network for Educational Technology (NEOnet) to provide a refresh on the district's network infrastructure in the amount of just over $1 million.
The term of the contract is for six years, so the district has that length of time to pay for the refresh.
NEOnet is an information technology center, based in Cuyahoga Falls, that serves school districts throughout Northeast Ohio to improve student education through the use of technology.
Robotics team to compete in regional
The board also approved an overnight trip for the Orange High School robotics team to participate in the regional competition slated for March 12-15 in Rochester, N.Y.
Cost of the trip is $200 per student. There will be no cost to the district.