Indian Prairie School District 204 is changing the way middle school students learn science.
After a month of debate, the school board Monday approved a new middle school curriculum and accompanying materials aimed at fulfilling the Next Generation Science Standards. Instead of regurgitating information from a teacher’s lecture or textbook, students will be given an inquiry concept to explore through activities.
The district will spend $835,381 over the next six years to buy middle school materials from Activate Learning. The package proposed for purchase — Investigating & Questioning our World Through Science & Technology, or IQWST — includes digital editions for 96 teachers, interactive digital editions for 6,560 students, grade-level equipment and consumable kits.
The change faced scrutiny over the rigor of the materials and whether the board could approve classroom materials without adopting the new curriculum first.
Before the vote, Crone Middle School seventh-grade science teacher Anna Zuccarini said she was concerned with the direction the science curriculum is headed.
“The proposed curriculum and in particular the set of proposed textbooks represent a profound diminishment of the rigor we maintain in District 204,” she said.
Zuccarini said she also is disappointed the science research project would be eliminated from the curriculum, and that the textbooks lack basic scientific terminology and age-appropriate illustrations.
But two other teachers defended the curriculum and IQWST materials. Seventh-grade teacher Kristin Shaw and eighth-grade teacher Brian Klaft served on the curriculum committee that spent the last several years researching the proposal recommended to the board.
Science fair projects would not go away completely, they said, but rather would expand to include more students as an extracurricular program.
Klaft also said the committee knew fellow teachers would have concerns.
“We present to you, the board, and to our peers the best curricular model we can,” Klaft said. “We feel the middle school science teachers will teach better, all of science students will have enhanced learning, and the district reputation for being on the forefront of education will be solidified.”
School board member Maria Curry, who cast the only vote against the science plan, said she preferred to see a more extensive pilot of the materials and curriculum. She said her fear was the district would spend close to $1 million and in several years find out the science curriculum is lacking.
Chief Academic Officer Kathy Pease said she is confident district students will perform well on assessment tests because the curriculum and materials are all based on Next Generation Science Standards.
Board President Lori Price said students’ love of learning should be more of a priority, not just assessment performance.
“We shouldn’t be teaching to the test,” she said.
Board member Mark Rising urged a vote on the matter.
“I’m personally a little disappointed in us. We should be way further ahead on this because we’ve been working three years on it,” Rising said, adding he doesn’t blame administrators or teachers. “Right now, it’s the board that’s holding them back.”
The science standards were adopted by the Illinois State Board of Education in January 2014 with full implementation set for the 2016-17 school year. School districts will begin testing on the standards this spring.
Similar to the Common Core State Standards for English/language arts and mathematics, NGSS is a list of what students should know and be able to do by the end of each grade level to be successful in college and careers.
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