Decatur Township Schools - A Journey Toward Excellence

by Debbie Sullivan
Assistant Superintendent
Decatur Township Schools

In June, Indianapolis will host a regional curriculum mapping conference. One local school district has been focusing on curriculum mapping for the past eight years as a means of curriculum articulation, alignment and connection to state academic standards. Dr. Debbie Sullivan, who will be presenting at the Indianapolis conference, discusses her district’s Journey Toward Excellence and what she hopes educators will gain from having a local conference dedicated to curriculum mapping.

For the past several years Metropolitan School District of Decatur Township has been on a Journey Toward Excellence. The curriculum mapping process has been a major part of our mission to transform the district into a 21st Century environment that will prepare students for their world in the information age. In the past eight years, we have made major changes: We opened a Challenger Learning Center; we created five small learning communities from our comprehensive high school of 1,600 students, including a New Tech High; we created the Decatur Discovery Academy, a small charter high school using the Expeditionary Learning model; we opened the Goodwin Community that brings direct social and developmental services to the community; we created the Decatur Enrichment Center that provides an alternative setting for high school students; and we redesigned West Newton Elementary into small learning communities comprised of vertical 1-4 teams.

As our transformation continues, curriculum mapping continues to be the vehicle for curriculum articulation, alignment, and connection to our Indiana Academic Standards. We began using the curriculum mapping process, along with working in professional learning communities, eight years ago. These two components have become “non-negotiable” and are embedded in our daily work. As with all parts of our journey, we learn and grow each year in how best to use both processes to improve student academic achievement.

Our Curriculum Council has been instrumental in facilitating the mapping process at each of our ten schools. The Council has evolved through the years and is now leading the process and making decisions for the district in assessing the process and revising/refining the process so it works for our district. The Council is comprised of about 50 members that include teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators. Each year we add new members from the schools and veteran members can choose to rotate out, but the council has grown because veterans choose not to rotate out!

Our Curriculum Council establishes goals for our district and communicates with teachers in all schools. Council members have worked to create district consensus maps, plan and implement Atlas training at each building, design and create the coaching protocol, and create consistent district expectations for mapping. Since the curriculum mapping process is fluid, our council continues to learn and synthesize the process to assure it continues to be an effective process for collecting data and communicating. A couple of years ago, several council members attended a session at the National Institute and were introduced to the Coaching Protocol. We soon determined the coaching protocol was a phenomenal way for teachers to work with other teachers. As part of our goals for this year, all council members and building administrators have worked with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs through video conferences in understanding and using the coaching protocol effectively with teachers

The other component that has been extremely useful this past year for our council is the idea of “map and talk”. The idea of map and talk was learned from Dr. Susan Udelhofen. Udelhofen says one should never say map without talk, because that is what we do – map and talk. Our Council has adopted “map and talk” as our motto this year and it has made a huge difference in perception.

One of the most positive aspects of the mapping process is that it can be designed to meet the needs of our own community. It is not a package deal. Our Curriculum Council is continually learning how best to use the process to improve student achievement and it looks at each of our schools individually. We are excited to have a regional conference in our district June 9-11, 2009. Not only will this conference provide additional learning opportunities with Jacobs, it will also provide interaction, discussion, and sharing with other districts, which is another great source for learning. In addition, educators in our district are looking forward to gaining an even deeper understanding of Coaching Protocol, as this is one focus of the Indiana conference.

As we continue our Journey Toward Excellence, our Curriculum Council will be instrumental in guiding and refining our teaching and learning. Many of us will attend the regional conference in Indiana, but we are also making plans to attend the Curriculum Mapping Institute in Park City in July. Thinking skills with Bena Kallick and Art Costa, differentiation with Dr. Tomlinson, designing lessons with Jay McTighe, and mapping with Jacobs – what a perfect next step for MSD of Decatur Township in assuring the integration of planning and thinking in the design of our 21st Century schools.