Welcome to the Galena City School District Curriculum and Assessment System.  This three part curriculum system provides the classroom teacher (and homeschooling parent), classroom parent, and student with essential information for tracking student progress and planning daily, weekly, and annual instruction.  This curriculum addresses the four core academic subjects of Language Arts/English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies for grades K-12.  Each curriculum consists of a three part system illustrated on Figure 1 as a triangle.  There are four triangles, one for each subject area.  There are three parts to each triangle, of increasing length and detail: the 1 page checklists (the tip of the triangle), the four page testing guides (the middle of the the triangle), and the 10 page curriculum frameworks (the base).  There is one of each of these three documents for each course in each of the four subjects, a total of 155 documents.  Each section of each triangle is composed of approximately 14 documents: one for each grade level K-8 and one for each high school course.  Using this website, the teacher or parent can assemble the information necessary to plan lessons, evaluate, and teach any specific grade or course by selecting, downloading, or printing the checklist, the testing guide, and the framework for any one grade level subject such as fourth grade Math.  The key thing to remember is that for each course, Grade 4 Math, for example, there are three documents on the website:

The Checklist: 25 Standards

This checklist is a one page list of 25-30 essential standards which the student must master for this course.  This is the student report card.  This checklist will serve as a summary of the content of the year's learning and can be used by the teacher as a report card to indicate to the parent and child quarterly which standard the student has mastered, is showing progress toward mastery, or failing to show progress.  A student's grade will be based on the percentage of skills in which he/she shows mastery or progress.  This checklist is the most important document for parents and children.  The checklist includes and synthesizes in summary report form all the key skills and content included in the CAT 5, the Alaska Benchmark Tests and High School Diploma Exam, and the Alaska State Content Standards and national frameworks.  For the parent and student, this checklist is the most important part of the curriculum.

The Testing Guide: 100 Assessment Benchmarks

The Assessment Benchmark is a 2-4 page document of approximately 100 competencies or benchmarks.  These are all the skills on the essential tests which measure Alaska students' achievement.  The testing guide will list all skills tested on the CAT  test in Science and Social Studies, the Alaska Benchmark tests in grades 3, 6 and 8 in Math and Language Arts (Reading and Writing) and the Alaska High School Diploma Exam in Math, Reading, and Writing.  Every skill included on these essential tests is listed in the Assessment Benchmark document  for this grade level.  Furthermore these benchmark statements provide information specifically about how the skill is tested.  These documents are primarily for use by the teacher to plan quarterly and semester units to ensure that all skills on the tests are taught and that the skills are addressed in the classroom in the same way they are tested on the tests.  It is essential that teachers use the testing guide in planning lessons and evaluation so that the student can practice using the skills in the same way as they are tested.

The Curriculum Frameworks: 250 skills and activities

The Curriculum Frameworks provide the teacher with a 4-15 page comprehensive list of 200-400 objectives, skills, and activities.  The content of each framework has been aligned 100% with the Alaska Content Standards.  In addition, it includes material from national curriculum associations such as the National Council of Teachers of Math, National Council of Teachers of English, National Science Teacher Association, Geography.  This most comprehensive document includes not only student skills and objectives, but activities and teaching suggestions.  in many cases, these framework includes sample activities and projects which will teach the essential skills.  It will serve as a reference resource guide for the teacher in developing detailed daily lesson plans to teach to the standards on the one page checklists