Norwood Schools Making Strides in Full Curriculum Writing

The Norwood Public Schools are moving forward with implementation of the Common Core Standards, and right now assistant superintendent Alex Wyeth said overall literacy is the current goal right now.

The teachers are 100 percent behind this initiative,” he said. “It’s essential to academic success across the content areas.”

Wyeth added a good basis in writing would help students to achieve more in all curriculums, not just English Language Arts.

“It’s for literacy and retention strategies across the curriculum,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of professional development in those areas, and that’s where we’re putting our chips, as it will have big carryover effects in all content areas.”

Wyeth said from years 2012-2014, the schools are working to improve overall comprehension and writing in all aspects of education and have spent a lot of time in professional development getting teachers ready for the change.

“It started being implemented as soon as it came out, we started reading it, processing it applying it to our curriculum about a year ago,” he said. “We’re finishing that up in math this year. There will be science standards coming out for which we will be updating our program.”

Wyeth said to monitor the success rate of this initiative, they will be paying close attention to MCAS and SAT scores, as well as common assessment results and student grades.