Dear Respected Board members, School staff and Community members,
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to present my views on Elementary School’s Math Textbook Adoption process.
I’d like to request the 5 board member’s undivided attention for the next 3 minutes. Because of your hard work, Palo Alto School District has earned an incredibly positive reputation of taking sound decisions for the benefit of our school kids. Your decisions have brought Palo Alto credibility and reputation as one of the best school districts in the country that respects educators and parents alike
Not all your decisions were easy. In fact most of your decisions were taken after extensive research, and active listening to various stakeholders. You’ve considered recommendations, evaluated pros & cons and then after extensive deliberation, you’ve taken decisions on your own footing with your own knowledge, insight and wisdom.
The Math Textbook Selection decision will be an important decision that you will make individually in the next 2 weeks. A large Palo Alto community of over 350 Palo Alto residents is recommending via a petition that you decide now on postponing the selection for one more year. You may wonder why?
There are 3 separate reasons that relate to the communication & process:
1. The first reason to defer is due to lack of official communication of the process between parents, community and district. Initial communication of this process was by means of a flier inserted within student’s Friday packet. Frankly, participation in <PAUSD named festivals> and other events are advertised & broadcasted more aggressively than this important subject of Math Textbook. Once pilot process had begun, only then did parents start to hear more about this process via unofficial conversations. In the last month, there was more communication, but this has limited impact since the finalists and now the winner had already been chosen. We need to restart the process with this level of communication going all the way to deciding selection criteria.
2. The second reason to postpone your decision to next year is to ensure that AR6161(?) is followed appropriately. AR6161 states that “Alteast two to five parents should be included and PTA Exec should be consulted…” PTA president, Dan, confirmed that PTA was not consulted!! Four parents had applied and one was rejected although it was not oversubscribed. Out of the 3 parents that applied there was not sufficient representation of a wider community that would include GATE students, average students, Special ED and ELL students.
3. The third reason was the miscommunication between McGrawHill’s rep and Committee regarding SRA. Pls. note that SRA was the ONLY curriculum that received a 100% YES from Committee’s evaluation of all 7 textbooks. It also has a favorable support from community. McGraw Hill Vice President has confirmed that SRA Real Math is sold and supported in California; and moreover, the publisher is required to do so by California Educational Code.
Going back to the Adoption committee’s work in October, the issue with SRA availability should have been discussed at the committee meetings, and senior PAUSD district staff should have been notified and involved. The committee should have considered alternatives. None of that occurred — a serious breakdown in the process
4. Harcourt and Singapore Math got more votes than Envision. Why was Envision chosen for a pilot over those 2 programs
There is absolutely no requirement on your side to enforce a new math textbook this year. You will not be requesting just additional time but you are supporting:
1. Early and frequent communication between parents and staff.
2. Involvement of parents of wide variety of students in the selection committee.
3. Its not a philosophical war – unfortunately it’s a lack of communication
4. There is a lot of positive data on EDM that the committee wishes that the community gets a chance to review. Similarly, there is a lot of negative data on EDM and positive data on SRA that the community wishes that the community gets a chance to review. You will achieve that goal by requesting for an extension
Your decision is narrowed down to 3 options:
1. Accept Committee’s recommendation of EDM
2. Reject Committee’s recommendation and approve another MATH Curriculum
3. OR Get additional time to include more parents in the committee, have an option to pilot SRA, and then have a majority of community members approve.
Personally, it doesn’t matter what math textbook you vote for, as long as you are confident that the designated expert committee has followed a thorough process.
Knowing very well that the ONLY universal choice of each and every committee member was SRA, and that it was not piloted due to miscommunication, shows that there was an important break in the process.
By deciding to vote on postponing the math textbook selection by one additional year, you will provide an opportunity for the committee to pilot the one curriculum that they voted the most.
Thank you.
