The West Central Valley School Board recently approved purchases for professional development and curriculum.

Director of Teaching and Learning Amanda Nims presented at the recent Board meeting about a purchase agreement which Solution Tree, Inc. for $12,153.20 which the Board approved. This agreement includes onsite professional development, a global professional development live coaching session, and resources. Nims explained how the Professional Learning Community program would focus on “three big ideas” of learning, building a collaborative culture, and results.

She also presented a middle school science curriculum quote of $34,536.36. Nims said this curriculum would be good for the next six years. Board members Ashley Stodden and Jen Clemetson asked Nims if this purchase fits into an overall curriculum plan for the district. Nims pointed out that she was budgeted $100,000 for this year, and had so far spent $20,000, “The plan is very hard to come up with when everything needs to be updated so that’s where I’m at right now. So at this point in time I’m just looking at what needs to be updated soonest, does that make sense? So for instance, I would love if there had been some sort of system so that I could say you know, ‘Next year K-12 everybody gets a new math, like we’ll look at math and that will be our focus and we’ll update math.’”

Nims said that situation would not be possible, but that she does have a loose curriculum cycle set up, which Co-Superintendent and Middle School Principal Anthony Lohse suggested she could present at the next regular Board meeting.