Newport-Mesa teachers to begin testing math curriculum that could replace Swun Math in 6th grade

Newport-Mesa Unified School District teachers will pilot amath curriculum next month through April, taking another step toward replacing the controversial Swun Math for sixth-graders.

The school board Tuesday unanimously approved a $10,000 agreement with Agile Mind, a Texas-based company founded in 2002, to provide teacher training for its Middle School Math curriculum.

Agile Mind collaborates with the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin to provide “comprehensive, standards-centered lessons,” according to its website.

In November, the school board approved a similar $10,000 agreement with Open Up Resources, a math education nonprofit, to pilot its Illustrative Mathematics program.

Newport-Mesa began using Swun Math in 2013, but some parents and teachers have urged the board to look at other Common Core-based math programs after finding errors and typos in Swun materials.

Trustees voted in May to replace Swun Math in kindergarten through fifth grade with Math Learning Center’s Bridges in Mathematics, a curriculum that implements Common Core State Standards, a set of educational standards that most states have adopted for English and math.

But sixth-graders have continued to use Swun Math to give teachers more time to collaborate with middle school teachers and test other programs that could be used in grades six through eight.

Priscella.Vega@latimes.com

Twitter: @vegapriscella