Our curriculum is written with standards and benchmarks.

Standards: Articulate what students should understand and be able to do within specific subject areas.

Benchmarks: Statements of developmental levels of information and skills that define the general categories of knowledge articulated by the standards. They translate a standard into what the student should understand and be able to do at developmentally appropriate levels.

The standards and benchmarks are required when planning a unit.

Examples:

Standard: Understands and applies basic and advanced properties of the concepts of numbers.

Benchmarks:

Grade 1: Counts objects in a given set containing between 0 and 100 objects and reads and writes the corresponding numeral.

Grade 4: Identifies the place value for each digit in a whole number through the millions and compares them using symbols or words (greater than, less than or equal to).

Grade 6: Associates verbal names, written word names, and standard numbers with integers, fractions, decimals, numbers expressed as percents, whole numbers with exponents.

Pollock, J. (1998) Dimensions of learning: 1998 Summer Conference. Aurora, CO: McREL p.14.

Teachers are responsible for teaching, assessing and reporting on these benchmarks.

Specific Standards and Benchmarks for each subject area can be found by following the links below. Please click on the links below to view the section's documents.

• Elementary School
• Middle School
• High School