The What

The Curriculum Management System (CMS) provides clear guidelines and procedures for significant areas related to standards-based teaching and learning. Standards-based teaching and learning form the backbone of our education system. Adopting or revising new standards requires high-quality instructional materials, professional learning, alignment to assessment, and clear communication and connection across initiatives.  The CMS is to be used in the tri-level system to define the roles and responsibilities of each level. The CMS aligns with the Hawai‘i State Board of Education (BOE) policies and other applicable regulations.  It establishes timelines and tools for standards,  the Instructional Materials Approval Process (IMAP) for high-quality instructional materials review, and defines key terms to ensure common language and understanding. 

The How

The CMS acts as an enduring framework that provides common guidance for the processes outlined herein yet is flexible enough to allow for the shifting needs of our schools, complex areas, and state.  

Roles and Responsibilities

For each component of the CMS, tri-level organizational roles and responsibilities, as well as community responsibilities, are broadly described.  The intent is not to give a detailed description of each role/responsibility or to provide an exhaustive list of tools/processes/resources/procedures, but to:

1. Establish shared leadership for curriculum management and instructional materials approval;

2. Provide common understandings of each component of the CMS; and

3. Outline clear roles and responsibilities for schools, complex areas, and state offices, including communication and collaboration with families and communities.

Role Groups and Role Types

The purpose of this document is not to prescribe roles and responsibilities for individuals.  These examples of the role types within each of the role groups include, but are not limited to, the following:

Community partners as defined by BOE Policy 102-4 include:

• Parents or guardians, including those whose children have disabilities and/or are second language learners;

• Educational community, representatives from various educational institutions and organizations such as institutes of higher education, private schools, and independent entities that serve the educational community;

• Community organizations, representatives from various community groups and organizations such as business partnership organizations, the Parent Teacher Student Association (“PTSA”), and military partnerships.

• Governmental organization liaisons.

Use of Instructional Materials

The CMS establishes the Instructional Materials Approval Process (IMAP) for high-quality instructional materials review.

Curricular materials can support and empower teachers and positively impact student achievement (Chiefs for Change, 2018).  High-quality instructional materials should be:

• content-rich and rigorous;

• aligned to content-area standards, including the pedagogical vision of the standards;

• accessible to all students to promote equity;

• supportive of teacher professional learning, collaboration, and classroom instruction;

• flexible, to allow for customization for local context;

• designed to prepare students for college, career, and community; and

• grounded in research and best practices for the content area.

The range of instructional materials used in a classroom should:

• present content and skills through a variety of learning experiences;

• allow students to demonstrate proficiencies in different ways; and

• stimulate engagement by tapping into students’ cultures, sense of place, and interests.

Teachers and administrators should see instructional materials as one means to student achievement, not an end unto themselves. It is likely that no single product will fully meet the needs of a local school community; implementing instructional materials to meet the standards may require different strategies.

Schools may need to select a tightly-focused suite of materials. For example, a middle school may supplement an English textbook with local primary sources and trade books. Further, teachers as professional educators can be creative in adapting materials to connect to their students’ interests and sense of place. In a high school biology class, a teacher may center natural selection on Hawaiian honeycreepers rather than the Galapagos finches found in the textbook. Finally, schools can build upon existing instructional materials to honor student voice and support the development of the whole child.

Instructional materials should be implemented with integrity, i.e. for their intended purpose in standards-based teaching and learning, not necessarily fidelity. The goal is to use curricular materials to help students achieve standards, not to pace each page in a textbook, use every activity or component as written, or “get through” content.

Support must be provided to teachers for making sense of how curricular materials can be used with appropriate instructional techniques to implement standards-based teaching and learning. In this regard, a common set of materials within a grade level, course, or school can allow teachers to more easily collaborate, learn, and plan together.