Two new math curricula will be piloted across district schools from transitional kindergarten through tenth grade starting in the spring semester, Executive Director of Learning and Innovation Priti Johari said. The goal is to align with the California education system’s updated math frameworks (circa 2023) as well as to better support English language learners and students with disabilities, Johari said.
The point of the pilot program is to help students understand why they’re learning what they’re learning and to remove the monotony from math class, she added.
“We are shifting to a more problem-based approach to math, so that students are not just doing rote, procedural math, but really starting with the questions of, ‘What am I trying to solve?’ and ‘How do I solve it?’” Johari said.
The decision to adopt two distinct math curricula came after the district reviewed twenty different curricula, all from different vendors, she added.
“When we looked at new curricula, we were evaluating for the needs of our English language learner students, our special education students, and our Latinx students,” Johari said.
Ultimately, one of the primary aims of the new math program is to encourage conversations about math and promote a deeper, real-world understanding of course material, rather than sticking to the traditional lecture-based curriculum where talking among students is kept to a minimum, Director of Secondary Education Maurissa Koide said.
“One thing we really want to elevate is students’ discourse and discussion, especially academic talk around math, which we don’t always find happening in classrooms,” Koide said.
The Curriculum Policy Committee (CPC), the district committee that oversees the planning and adoption of the pilot curricula, also made sure to take past student feedback into account when designing the pilot, Koide said. For example, it was observed that a surprising number of students preferred offline math instruction rather than being overly reliant on online resources, she said.
“With AI, the push for technology, and after COVID, we thought students would just want to do online learning,” Koide said. “But what we were finding is that students actually wanted more of a balance—more pen to paper. They were getting fatigued on the computer. That was a surprising realization.”
The district will continue to collect feedback and listen to students as the pilot program progresses, Koide added.
“If we had really negative feedback from students on both of the curricula we’ve chosen, we would take a pause, and look at what we did and what the pilot implementation looks like,” Koide said. “Because one thing that’s really important — not only to all of the staff, but also to our superintendent and our school board — is the student voice.”
Students of teachers participating in the pilot program will see changes in curriculum pacing as well as new textbooks and resources, MHS math teacher and CPC member Olga Eidelman said.
“Depending on which curriculum we’re going to choose from the two available, we’re going to choose a different publisher, and the books are going to be different,” Eidelman said. “The structure of the curriculum is also going to be slightly different. There is a slight change in pacing, so we’re going to teach slightly less material, but go deeper into it in each of the courses.”
The change in curriculum is expected to benefit students, especially following the decline in standardized testing scores observed post-pandemic, Eidelman added.
“We, as a state, saw a huge decline in scores in mathematics, especially after the Coronavirus, when they fell and never came back to the level prior to the pandemic,” Eidelman said. “So (the CPC) hopes that with the new curriculum, we will be able to dive a little bit deeper and allow you guys to do more hands-on activities, which will increase the participation of the students, and hopefully it will bring the test scores back.”
The two curricula are expected to pilot in January and February of 2026, she added.
“We are excited for the new changes,” Eidelman said.
