Southgate has already heard back from parents who like the new math lessons as well, according to Edwina Harder, Southgate’s principal. According to Harder, parents who’ve attended the Hispanic Parent Meetings have already expressed positive feedback to the school’s officials.

“They really did like the homework element,” Harder said.

Throughout the year, teachers from all grade levels will meet to discuss the new math changes, while kids will benefit from the early release days that make these meetings possible. In this way, the teachers will figure out better ways to adapt the math lessons, learning how to teach them at the same time students are learning them.

“The first year you’re doing anything new, you’re not doing it as efficiently,” Alberts said. “Basically, you’re just learning too.”

This year, the district will look at changes to its English curriculum, hoping to get ahead of national education standards changes. According to Alberts, most education experts believe Congress will approve a nation-wide adherence to the Common Core State Standards, a new system of educational benchmarks designed to prepare students for college and career readiness, by 2013. The district, Alberts said, is going to update its English curriculum to align with the Common Core’s English and Language Arts standards.

While the district won’t make a final decision regarding curriculum updates until April, this latest round of curriculum reviews may be complicated by the Common Core Standards. If the district finds an exceptional English and Reading system that isn’t entirely in tune with the Common Core, district officials may delay the curriculum shift to the Core standards to the next review cycle.

While the district will still keep trying to make improvements on state comprehensive testing, they’ll keep on finding ways to help students learn in the classroom.

“We’ve got to find the connection,” Krenz said. “The correlation is, if the student’s motivated, then achievement will take place. True learning doesn’t happen unless the student makes a connection that has meaning to them, and that’s what we need to do.”