Springfield schools starts elementary science curriculum adoption process

Springfield Public Schools has begun its official process of adopting a new elementary science curriculum.

Administrators presented Springfield Board of Education members with a short description of the materials at the April 13 board meeting. In two weeks, the public and the board will have the opportunity to review the materials and give the district feedback. The board will then vote on whether to adopt the new curriculum.

If adopted, Springfield elementary school students would learn science from a combination of different sources: the district’s language arts curriculum and pieces of three other science curricula including Mystery Science, Discovery Science and McGraw Hill’s Inspire Science. The district would pay $16,445 a year for the materials they don’t already have.

The adoption comes after the district took a two-year extension to independently develop a curriculum instead of buying new materials. It also comes after months of public discourse around the adequacy of Springfield’s current elementary science curriculum and a complaint raised to the state level nearly two years ago.

Delays in curriculum development 

Springfield’s elementary school science curriculum has been a work in progress for several years.

Whitney McKinley, director of teaching and learning, reported to the board at an April 8, 2024, meeting that a subcommittee of teachers, headed by Dara Brennan, a science teacher on special assignment, was working on taking science-themed texts from the English Language Arts curriculum and making units and lessons out of them. 

McKinley said at the April 13 meeting that then-superintendent Todd Hamilton requested the district use the elementary English Language Arts curriculum as the basis for their science curriculum, due to the cost of buying new science materials and the time and energy it would have taken for staff to select the materials. 

“We had just adopted almost $5 million in language arts materials,” McKinley said. “That was a huge lift for our elementary teachers.”

In the April 8, 2024, meeting, the district also asked for a year extension from the board and the board granted it. McKinley said, in subsequent talks with Oregon Department of Education staff, the district learned they would have to go through an independent adoption process to use the language arts curriculum for science, a legal process in Oregon to adopt materials not on the state-approved curriculum list.

McKinley said in the April 13 meeting that while the district previously believed its language arts curriculum would provide enough standards-aligned science material to also serve as their science curriculum, they discovered “significant gaps” as they dug into the curriculum. They found that while it aligned closely with state standards in some grade levels, it aligned much less in others. The language arts curriculum also lacked the hands-on science activities that standards require, McKinley said.

In fall 2024, the district filed a corrective action plan with the state to extend the process further, saying the materials would be ready for independent adoption by the board in time for fall 2026 implementation. McKinley said staff used a state rubric while putting together the elementary science curriculum to ensure the materials meet state requirements.

The board also approved a one-year extension to the district’s adoption of a new elementary social studies curriculum in the April 13 meeting.

“The purpose of our postponements really are to allow our teachers a little bit more time,” said McKinley. “This timeline is allowing us to do some deeper dives, professional learning and gap analyses.”

Parallel discontent

Springfield teacher Mikell Harshbarger has been making noise about Springfield’s lack of elementary science and social studies curriculum for years, arguing that the district lacked materials that meet state standards since the previous adoption cycles in 2017 and 2019.

He has submitted letters to the board, formal complaints with the district and filed a complaint against the district with the Oregon Department of Education in June 2024 about the lack of elementary science and social studies curricula in Springfield and lack of time to teach the subjects. He argued the district had incorrectly reported compliance with state standards for the 2022-23 school year.

Springfield Public Schools administrators deemed his initial complaint, which was through the district, inaccurate before he appealed it to the state. They argued that there was adequate time and materials, referencing the district’s beginning phases of using the English Language Arts curriculum to teach science, materials that were later deemed inadequate by state standards.

Brian Richardson, Springfield Public Schools director of communication, said in response to Lookout Eugene-Springfield the district cannot comment on Harshbarger’s complaint because it is still under review.

Harshbarger’s broader argument — that reading and math have taken outsized time during  the elementary school day due to the pressures of standardized testing — has resonated across the Springfield community. 

The Community Alliance for Public Education, a local education advocacy group, has taken up the cause — urging people to attend meetings, make public comments and support board members who have spoken up about curriculum concerns. Former Springfield teacher Sarah Bosch created a Change.org petition demanding a “well-rounded education for K-5” that has now garnered 825 signatures. 

Harshbarger also sent a letter to the district signed by 74 other teachers in August with similar complaints about curriculum compliance. The district took it as a formal complaint and paid for an investigation that concluded the teachers’ concerns were false because the district was in the process of creating a new curriculum. In the investigation report, however, teachers voiced their concerns about the current state of affairs, saying they did not have adequate materials to teach science or social studies.

The question of whether Springfield’s elementary curriculum is in compliance has been at the heart of the district’s year of conflict between the board and district leaders, which has resulted in the resignations of the superintendent and assistant superintendent, as well as the school board chair.

But until a recent February budget committee meeting, the district has been silent about its progress on the science curriculum and the public’s concerns. The only information the administration shared publicly was the three-sentence corrective action plan in the district’s Division 22 assurances report presented to the board in October 2024.

In response to Lookout’s question about the reason for the silence, Richardson stated that the district has official avenues for the public to express concerns about curriculum. He said administrators have not received a “significant increase” in concerns about instructional materials over the past several years. He said the district uses formal processes to address areas of improvement, such as the built-in, state-required curriculum adoption cycle. (Oregon districts must re-evaluate instructional materials for each school subject every six years.)

“These processes include structured opportunities for public review and engagement, such as the current review period,” Richardson said. “The District focuses its communication on these formal processes and opportunities for engagement, rather than responding to or countering individual narratives.”

How to learn more: Community members can now schedule a time between April 28 and May 6 to review elementary science materials, as well as secondary social science materials that are also in line for board adoption. According to a district blog post, members of the public can contact Brenna Germano at 541-726-3262 to schedule an appointment to ensure district leaders will be present to answer questions.