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The Board of Education at the San Ramon Valley Unified School District voted at its most recent meeting to adopt policy updates that have been in the works for months following a board workshop and subsequent discussions that were scheduled after a complaint from a parent earlier in the school year.
Trustees voted unanimously at their regular meeting Tuesday to approve revisions to the board policy on selection and evaluation of instructional materials that included adding language specifying the district’s practices on supplementary instructional materials and clarifying when material must be submitted for board approval.
According to new language adopted into the policy, “a textbook or novel must receive approval from the Board when it is used in a class setting where all students are provided with a copy and expected to read it, whether as a class, in groups or independently.”
While a majority of supplementary materials would not be subject to board approval under these conditions, additional language added to the policy seeks to provide guidelines on how supplementary materials, as opposed to official curriculum, are selected.
The additional language adopted in the policy change notes that the use of supplementary material is encouraged, provided the material is “aligned with the district’s Strategic Directions and goals, curriculum objectives, and academic standards.” Supplementary materials are also directed to be relevant to the course in question as well as being appropriate for students’ ages and maturity levels.
“Whenever a district employee proposes to use a supplementary resource which is not included in the approved learning resources of the district, the employee shall preview the material to determine whether, in the employee’s professional judgment, it is appropriate for the grade level taught and is consistent with district criteria for the selection of supplementary instructional materials,” according to the policy update.
The approval came following months of discussions on the topic, including an April 25 board workshop that was requested by the board at their Feb. 20 meeting, during which they considered an appeal from a parent raising concerns about the use of the 2007 Sherman Alexie novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” and requesting its removal from the district.
While the board voted 4-1 to deny her appeal that night, it spurred further discussion and desire for clarification on the distinction between adopted textbooks and supplementary material – with the novel in question having been classified as the latter – and guidelines for the use of both in classrooms.
Debra Petish, executive director of curriculum and instruction, noted at this week’s meeting that read-aloud materials, used most commonly in elementary classrooms, would continue to be exempt from the board approval process under the revised policy.
“Any time there’s a read-aloud, by the nature of a read-aloud only the teacher is there to be able to support the students in processing the information that’s in that book, they can answer any questions,” Petish said. “In a read-aloud, only the teacher typically has that read aloud right. The students don’t have it to take home or to read on their own at any given time.”
She noted that school staff had said that maintaining the current practice surrounding read-aloud materials was important to maintain for the sake of facilitating spontaneous learning in the classroom and allowing teachers to engage in teachable moments as they arose.
“It does take a long time often for something to get board approved, so if the class becomes really interested in something or something really exciting happens in the news and it takes maybe a two-month turn around to get that book approved, it really would potentially squash student engagement and the ability of teachers to pick the books that they feel students are most interested in listening to.”
“I think one of the concerns that I have that some parents have come to me with before is what do you do if – because even in some elementary schools, the principal will select a book and read it out loud to all the classes or most of the classes or something like that – so my two kind of like components of what I was hoping for in overall policy – and we did have some discussions on maybe these live in separate policies, is the notification component,” Area 1 Trustee Jesse vanZee said.
“I get it that a second grade teacher can’t be like ‘oh, I was interested in reading to them about electricity,’ and it’s not a board-approved book, it’s just a simple, straightforward kids book,” he continued. “But when there are maybe more controversial subjects that are approached, on the communication piece of — all the way from primary to secondary and all the way up through high school — That notification of is it on a syllabus, is there foreknowledge that is discoverable by a parent should they wish to choose to see that? Do we have any sort of plan in the works as far as maybe looking at something like syllabus requirement language or anything like that that would address the communication piece?”
Superintendent John Malloy said that staff had so far “taken it as far as we could take it without a full negotiation process for work impacts.”
“What this policy emphasizes is that the teacher has a professional responsibility outlined in the way you see it,” Malloy said. “It also speaks to our engagement of parents should they have concerns. But the concerns don’t just have to be in reaction to something. The concerns can be in developing that relationship with the teacher at the beginning of the year to talk about who their child is, who their family is and so forth, and so that’s as far as we can go at this point.”
Malloy added that an option for the board that evening would be to reject the proposed policy changes and instead direct staff to address vanZee’s concerns, but that the points he’d raised would require negotiations that would carry into the next school year.
“This is what we can bring based upon all the parameters that you shared previously,” Malloy said.
Newly seated student trustee Travis Hodges offered some of his first remarks from the dais, having been appointed to the seat earlier that evening.
“Spontaneous learning is important, and I do think it might be something to look into more just on controversial topics – because we don’t want parents getting upset – while making sure that that classroom dynamic is protected, especially with all of our educational stakeholders who we really value,” Hodges said. “But I do understand where you’re coming from. Dr. Malloy, to your point, we have gone I think as far as we can go with this.”
Area 2 trustee Shelley Clark said she was supportive of the policy updates as they were written, and called for trusting teachers to understand the needs of their students.
“I’m not going to handcuff our teachers to a policy that makes them not be able to spontaneously ed our students and give them the material that they feel like they need in any given subject,” Clark said. “If anybody has a problem with any of the things that are being read, there’s a way for them to deal with that, and they can talk to their teacher, and there’s a whole statute for them to go ahead and move forward.”
Clark proceeded to call for a vote on the policy changes, with Malloy interjecting to emphasize that there are processes already established for complaints about supplementary classroom materials selected by teachers and not brought to the board for approval.
“You won’t necessarily hear about it, because it’s a personnel matter that we’re not going to discuss publicly, but when someone chooses curriculum resources that we would suggest do not follow that expectation, there’s a process that we follow,” Malloy said. “Now I want to be very clear, it’s used very seldomly at SRVUSD. So if you as board members continue to hear from parents the absolutely most important messages, please be sure they’re talking to their school staff, because if they’re not, then we can never get to a better place, because what I find our school staff is second-to-none about is that when they know that there are concerns, they lean into those.”
Board President Laura Bratt and Area 5 Trustee Rachel Hurd also emphasized the importance of facilitating spontaneous learning, noting that they would not want to pursue further policy changes that placed additional restrictions on teachers.
“I don’t want to ever let the pursuit of the perfect get in the way of the good,” vanZee said, adding that he did see the policy presented that night as “much improved.”
“I think we had very robust debate, and even though we didn’t all agree on everything, I think what you did see is we as a board who were in different spots, we came together and we landed on something that was good,” vanZee said. “And I know that tension has to exist in the classroom. I wouldn’t want to move on one side of saying hey everything’s approved and then limit on the other side.”
He continued, “So I think that just has to be held in a healthy balance, and hopefully that the teachers will understand the students and the parents and the families in the classroom when addressing those sensitive topics. As a board member when the bell has been rung, you can’t unring the bell, and you’re like ok, now we’re acting reactionary. But again, there’s so many instances where that never happens, and we as board members just tend to hear about the ones where it goes wrong.”
Clark proceeded with a motion to approve the policy changes, which was seconded by Hurd and approved unanimously.
