Since Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, the Berkeley Unified School District has been hosting Listening and Learning sessions, a platform for community members to engage with district leaders over the recent changes and adoption of the literacy curriculum in elementary schools. There have been four sessions over the course of the last year, the most recent being on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025, at Berkeley Arts Magnet Elementary School. These meetings have provided parents with an opportunity to learn about the adoption of the elementary school curriculum, voice their concerns, ask questions, and share their feedback directly to the district.
Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Chris Albeck said that he considers these sessions as, “An opportunity for BUSD community to hear about our elementary curriculum adoption process, but also to provide feedback and guidance to ideas that we have, procedures that will follow and our next steps as it relates to the adoption process.”
The Listening and Learning sessions were originally designed and created to unite and give the district more opportunities to connect and interact with the Berkeley community over the curriculum that is being implemented into BUSD elementary schools.
“We are in an adoption process, and it’s really important for us to get input, so our parents, our community members and our educators feel like they have a voice in our decision making process, and so we wanted a space where everyone can come together and learn from each other,” Literacy Coach Erica Carter said.
For BUSD parents like Jaclyn Lee, attending these sessions is about ensuring that the new curriculum will support and ensure that students will have the right materials to use literacy skills efficiently. Lee shared a personal story about her reason for attending. “I have a fifth grader who I just actually got the email from his tutor yesterday that he reads, writes, and spells at a second and third grade level,” Lee said, “It’s sort of been going on for a couple of years that we’ve been really noticing, trying to advocate for him, to get the support through the school. I did a little bit of research, learning that the curriculum maybe was part of the reason why. So I just wanted to come and learn about the curriculum and help my kid get the help he needs.”
The fourth session focused on one particular theme: a window into a BHS classroom. Albeck said, “With this particular session, we sort of wanted to give this metaphorical window into what’s happening in BUSD classrooms now and then what will be happening into in BUSD classrooms next year, and to sort of share a little bit about why that shift will happen and why it’s an improvement.”
This meeting highlighted the adoption process of transitioning from the Fast Track Phonics program and Heggerty Literacy program, into Fish Tank, another literacy program. According to information sourced from the BUSD website and curriculum page, this transition, set to start up next school year, aims to help equip BUSD students with essential literacy and communication skills. Fish Tank learning, according to its website, builds focus and overall knowledge, increases reading and writing connection, and provides a more diverse and culturally representative literature program. Lee commented on the new curriculum saying, “I like the intention to the details of how children are being educated, and learning, and some of the things that are priorities, like you know, equality and diversity and really making sure that they’re deeply learning this knowledge.”
These two hour sessions not only go over new changes to the elementary curriculum, but also allow parents and community members to engage with one another and voice their opinions with the district facilitators as well. Carter believes that the most recent session met its goals of increasing open communication. “I think we learned more about simply how to tell families and community members what these curriculums are. There was space for questions and answers. I know, I personally got to sit with lots of the different families and hear what they were thinking. And that is, that’s the data that we want to take. And then we go back to the district, and we talk about all the feedback and how to implement that into our plan which is always super helpful for us,” said Carter.
For some BUSD parents, the significance of the Listening and Learning sessions are something that cannot be overstated. Parent Katy Reese said, “I think it’s important for there to be a venue for families to engage with the curriculum change process. It’s a big deal to adopt a new curriculum for English language arts. It makes up a huge portion of what our students do every day, and it really impacts their experience of school. So families should have the opportunity to know about what’s going on and ask questions. So it’s great that we have these sessions.”