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Math Adoption Days
On January 24 through 25, 2020, Region 9 hosted its first annual Math Adoption Days. Curriculum selection for school districts is an ominous and time-consuming process. Our schools strive to ensure that the curriculum they select for their classrooms is valid, equitable, and valuable to everyone involved in the educational process. Each year the Public Education Department provides curriculum choices to our schools that have been researched and verified as appropriate to meet the educational standards of our state. This year the NMPED selected over 15 publishers as possible options for our schools. This amount of curriculum is not only difficult to review for schools, but oftentimes it is difficult for schools in rural communities to gain access to multiple curriculum samples for review.
It is due to these difficulties that Region 9 Education Cooperative put together the Math Adoption Days. Through this event we researched the curriculum selections from the PED and verified them through EdReports, selecting eight publishers to invite to our event. Many of these publishers would not typically bring full samples for all grade levels to our rural community; however, by hosting this amazing event, they each were excited to work with us to bring the latest and greatest curriculum to those attending Math Adoption Days, and ultimately to our students.
Through this event, 16 districts participated, with over 100 teachers and administrators in attendance. Districts who attended felt that this was one of the best efforts put together to help our small schools gain access to a variety of worthwhile curricula. As the state holds text adoptions each year for different subject areas, Region 9 plans to continue this effort to bring the best possible curriculum to our students and teachers.
Mrs. Gibson, Principal at Capitan Elementary School, was in attendance. She expressed her appreciation to Region 9 by stating that the “math adoption event was beneficial to our school district. It was great to bring our curriculum adoption team to review multiple math curriculums at one time. The interaction with each publisher was very informative and allowed us to review the proposed curriculum and inquire as questions arose. We were also given samples and online logins to review the curriculum when we returned back to our campus. Thank you to R9 for putting this event together and we look forward to continued support in selecting curriculum in the future.”
Principal of Cloudcroft High School, Jocelyne Gillespie, also attended the event, and felt that “gathering several vendors under one roof and presenting the opportunity for school districts under R9 to view, listen, analyze, discuss, manipulate, and explore math textbooks in two days proved valuable. This allowed my school district to quickly narrow down which textbook companies would provide us with the materials we desired. Because we were able to examine top vendors in one place, we didn't feel like we were starting at ground zero. Our team quickly decided between our top three vendors, got their contact information, and invited them to give us a deeper dive. We certainly would appreciate participating in this type of gathering again for future textbook adoptions.”