In response to concerns from students, families, and staff, a local education agency (LEA) has decided to begin a comprehensive review of its English and Social Studies/History curricula to ensure that it is culturally responsive and reflective of the demographic and cultural backgrounds of its student body. The LEA creates workgroups consisting of subject area teachers at different grade levels, staff, and other key stakeholders to review the curricula. To support this work, the LEA contracts with an outside expert on culturally responsive curricula. In addition, the LEA invites interested high school students to serve as an “advisory board” to assist in this effort. Finally, the LEA plans a survey and a series of information/listening sessions for families and community members to offer opinions, as part of a larger LEA-wide effort to be more culturally aware.

• Who should be part of this review team? How often will the team meet and for how long? Will the team meet during the regular school day (requiring substitutes) or after school (requiring stipends)?
• What outside expertise can the LEA involve in this effort? What amount of support will be required and what will it cost?
• What new materials, if any, will the LEA need to purchase as a result of this review? Are these one-time or recurring costs (i.e., will there need to be a one-time purchase of a set of books, or will it need access to an online software package that has a yearly subscription cost)?
• What training will teachers need to feel comfortable teaching the new materials? Will teacher workgroups collaborate to develop new lesson plans?
  • How will the new curriculum be adapted for students with disabilities? With multilingual learners (ML)?
• Who will coordinate the student group(s)? How often will they meet? Is there a stipend required for a faculty advisor?
• Who will develop and administer the parent survey? Will the LEA hire an outside consultant to coordinate this effort? Will there be a plan to conduct a similar survey in 3/4/5 years?
• What listening/information sessions might be held? Will there be speakers from inside or outside the LEA? Who will facilitate the sessions? If an outside consultant is involved, what is the cost? Will the sessions be virtual or in-person, and what additional costs might there be (i.e., childcare costs or refreshments if in person)?
• What are the long-term plans to revisit these issues? Will the teacher workgroups reconvene after a year to assess progress and revise curricula/lesson plans as needed?

The LEA decides it wants to thoroughly review its curriculum to be more culturally responsive in content, instructional practices, and partnerships. This is a learning acceleration strategy highlighted in the State’s guide and for which the Maximizing Federal Funds Example pages provides sample evidence-based activities. 

The LEA may consider spending the funds below to enact their learning acceleration strategy to enhance the culturally responsiveness of their curriculum.

An LEA plans to review its English and Social Studies curricula, convene a student advisory group, and survey and hold information sessions with families. The total cost of the effort will be $70,000 (Table 1), which the LEA covers, first, through ESSER funds (Table 2), and later, after ESSER ends, through various funding streams (Table 3).

Table 1: Estimated costs of [activity]

Table 2: Funding allocation in 2023 and 2024

Table 3: Braiding of fund allocations for 2025 and beyond, based on the estimated percentage of students in LEA*

*Numbers are for representative purposes only. Curriculum review would not happen every year, new curriculum would not necessarily need to be purchased yearly, consultant costs may or may not be recurring, etc.