Throughout the duration of the 2012-2013 school year signs were placed in front yards around town that said “Say Nope to C-SCOPE”. These signs were put out to protest WFISD’s then curriculum, and one small protest turned into a reality.

Over the summer teachers from all three high schools in town, including Mrs. Preston and Mrs. Scheller from the Rider English department, came together at Region 9 Education
Service Center downtown to help write a new curriculum.

“As WFISD staff, we feel that we, as teachers, know our students best,” Preston said. “We can appeal to our students and their learning patterns in the best way possible.”

Preston said that some teachers are happy about the way that they chose to write certain units.

“I’m most excited about the Romeo & Juliet unit,” she said. “It’s always been my favorite to teach, and now that I have some say in the way that I’m teaching, and had a lot to do with writing this particular unit, I’m very excited that my students will have the opportunity to relate to what they’re learning.”

Even though it may seem that students are fairly carefree when it comes to their education and the material teachers present to them that isn’t the case with sophomore Zoë Gearhart.

“The new curriculum will make it easier for students to understand
what our teachers are teaching us,” Gearhart said. “Since they helped write the new material, they will be more passionate about the subject matter.”

Geography teacher Charlotte Owens is happy about the change, though she feels it didn’t change much.

“I had a few issues with some of the C-SCOPE lesson plans, because I felt they lacked in quality and didn’t supply enough background on certain topics, so my students couldn’t learn properly, so I had to adjust,” Owens said.

Owens said that she knows her students best and knows what kind of information they should be given so that they may learn with ease.

“Justin Chavez (Hirschi), Daniel Harris (Old High), and I based what we wrote off of our own lesson plans.” Owens said. “I was able to get input from the other teachers, and discover new methods that their students found easier to understand. Overall, it was an enjoyable and helpful experience.”

So far, only the first semester of the curriculum is completed. Teachers are still working to complete WFISD’s new course of study.

“It’s an on-going process, and I’m staying in close contact with teachers at Old High & Hirschi,” Preston said.