Andover Public Schools will roll out new literacy curriculums for students in grades K-8 at the start of the 2025-26 school year following an exhaustive, five-month review process by the district’s educators.
Superintendent Magda Parvey ordered the review after MCAS scores released in December showed “stagnant” performance on the English and Language Arts exam administered last spring. The school committee approved the new curriculums at its meeting Thursday.
“I’m very, very impressed, and I feel…you all feel really good about this and your educators feel, our educators feel really good about this,” Vice Chair Lauren Conoscenti said. I’m “confident that we’re moving in the right direction…because of the process being so robust and being so inclusive.”
Elementary school teachers will now use Great Minds Arts and Letters, a curriculum structured similarly to Eureka Math Squared, which APS adopted in 2022. Great Minds integrates literacy with science, social studies, and fine arts, includes writing instruction throughout modules, embeds formative and summative assessments, and offers embedded differentiation for learners.
Middle school students will use Amplify ELA, a comprehensive blended program with print and digital components. Amplify uses complex texts and stresses writing in response to reading assignments. The curriculum was also noted for its flexibility.
Parvey has scheduled a “Let’s Talk” discussion on Tuesday to give parents an overview of the new curriculums and answer questions.
A working group comprised of administrators, elementary and secondary teachers, special education teachers, English language learning teachers, classroom teachers, coaches, and principals reviewed different curriculums and organized pilot programs to gather feedback from students and teachers. The group focused on highly-rated programs that also met the state’s stringent guidelines for curriculum in Massachusetts public schools.