Burrillville School Department

Curriculum

You are invited to explore the Burrillville School Department’s Curriculum Standards – the Benchmarks for the Essential Learnings. All of the district's curriculum documents, including the Benchmarks, were developed by the district teachers for their classroom use.

The Essential Learnings, developed during the 1999 – 2000 school year, were defined as “the ten (10) most important areas of knowledge and application in each content area at each grade level that teachers shall teach and students shall learn.” When school opened in September 2000, each teacher received a copy of the complete K-12 Essential Learnings for the Burrillville School Department, organized alphabetically by content area and sequentially by grade within the content areas.

The Essential Learnings were comprehensive in nature and provided staff, students, and parents with a clear description of what students were expected to learn. The Essential Learnings became the focus of classroom instruction throughout the district as teachers constantly reminded students to consult the posted Essential Learnings charts and identify the Essential Learning that was currently being addressed. Every teacher, every student, and most parents understood the importance placed on the Essential Learnings by the district.

Curriculum work continued throughout 2000 – 2001 with the development of the Performance Tasks for the Essential Learnings. Five Performance Tasks were identified for each of the ten Essential Learnings at each grade level and in every content area. The Performance Tasks were distributed to teachers on the opening day of the 2001 – 2002 school year.

In 2002 - 2003, teachers were presented with a binder of Rubrics related to the Essential Learnings. Included were models of projects and performances that teachers could assign to enable students to demonstrate their knowledge and apply each Essential Learning in each content area at each grade level as well as samples to assist teachers in implementing what was, for many, a new form of assessment.

In 2003 - 2004, teachers received formal copies of the Benchmarks, standards that provide clearly defined performance expectations for every content area at every grade level. This document represents the Burrillville School Department’s assessment standards.

A Curriculum is never finished but rather it is a living document, meant to be constantly revised and improved by those who use it. The distribution of the Benchmarks initiated a review process as teachers implemented them in their classrooms. Grade level and content area groups continued to meet to share and record recommendations for future revisions.

Currently, the Rhode Island Department of Education is promoting the implementation of state standards: Grade Level Expectations (GLE's) and Grade Span Expectations (GSE's). District teachers are working on aligning the Essential Learnings with the GLE's and GSE's. In most cases, they are finding that there is a strong correlation among the documents. In some cases, the Burrillville Essential Learnings set a higher standard.

The bar for the state standards (GLE's and GSE's) is set at a level that most students in the state can eventually reach. Burrillville students have been stretching to meet Burrillville’s standards since September, 2000. The district will align its curriculum with the state standards, but it will retain the local standards that promote higher levels of achievement.

Meanwhile, as the curriculum work goes on, teachers will continue to consistently use the Essential Learnings, the Performance Tasks, and the Rubrics in order to ensure that each Burrillville student has the knowledge and skills to reach the Burrillville School Department’s Benchmarks.

The Burrillville School Department is grateful for the commitment and efforts contributed by many teachers and administrators in producing these documents, which are meant to establish user friendly standards for the educational program of the students in Burrillville.