Math nights aim for teachers to instruct parents on Common Core curriculum
A Maryland middle school student works on math problems as part of a trial run of a new state assessment test tied to Common Core standards.
When the school day was over on Wednesday, a select number of Glendale’s math teachers kept their sleeves rolled up and taught math to local parents as part of the first of four math sessions Glendale Unified is hosting to better inform parents about the math curriculum their children are learning.
The curriculum is part of the Common Core State Standards, which the majority of states adopted to attain apples-to-apples comparisons of students’ achievement levels from state to state.
The standards are said to be more complex, requiring students to explain how they reached their answers, and several parents have requested help from school officials to understand the standards and learn how to help their children.
“We have heard from many parents,” said Lynn Marso, assistant superintendent of Glendale Unified. “Parents have asked for more information [on] how to help and support their kids with the shifts in math.”
The math nights will be hosted at each of Glendale’s four middle schools, where parents will receive a rundown of how math curriculum is different today than it was just a few years ago.
Parents will split up to visit classrooms, where teachers will instruct them in math across different grade levels, from kindergarten through eighth grade.
They can visit two classrooms each night.
“This is absolutely a response to our next steps to do whatever we can to support parents and students,” Marso added.
The math workshops are the latest in a string of the district’s efforts to secure a smooth transition to the new curriculum.
Last spring, the school district reinstated a task force known as the Elementary Math Curriculum Review committee, made up of 20 teachers and a handful of administrators in order to lay out new math teaching goals.
This past summer, a team of 11 math coaches and nearly 30 teachers spent 15 days writing the curriculum for Glendale’s math teachers in their approach to teaching the new standards.
In September, the results of the state’s new exams, which students took on computers last spring, were made public.
In Glendale, 49% of students met or exceeded the mathematics standard, compared to the state average of 33%.
Each workshop will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The next session will be held on Nov. 2 at Roosevelt Middle School, 222 E. Acacia Ave., and Nov. 3 at Toll Middle School, 700 Glenwood Road. The last session will be held on Nov. 10 at Rosemont Middle School, 4725 Rosemont Ave.
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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com
Twitter: @kellymcorrigan