So then our courses around alignment within the district, our biggest example of that is social studies so if you remember over the past couple of years we've talked about the changes at the elementary schools to put the standards back into the grade levels particularly at key stage 2, grades 3, 4 and 5. That then subsequently had a change to 6th grade social studies last year which was a focus more on sort of geography and that type of study of social studies and then this year the changes in 7th grade which is a statement of courses at the high school we've had a change in teachers in our theater program and so we reinstated musical theater 1 and 2 and technical theater so what was happening prior to this was those courses were offered outside of the school day and we're in conjunction with the productions so the spring production and the fall production and so this puts it back into the school day allowing wider access for students and it's not tied to the production anymore so it's allowed students to study musical theater without being a member of the cast of the after school production and then we worked on alignment with the musical theater program at the middle school and then finally the small adjustments so most departments will have one or two courses that will adjust each year. I don't bring a lot of those to you because they're not big enough to feel like it's not a good use of your time but the ones that I wanted to highlight are the So with the development of the character with the bringing in the resource of character strong some of that resource is divided in a way that grade levels were sort of overlapping with one another on what they were doing so a child could experience the same lesson multiple times because of decisions that teachers were making so we developed a scope and sequence for it to say that these were the lessons that should go with kindergarten, these are lessons that should go with first grade, et cetera, and that has proven to be helpful to the teachers and I think will be more engaging for the children because there will be new lessons each year.

That then subsequently had a change to 6th grade social studies last year which was a focus more on sort of geography and that type of study of social studies and then this year the changes in 7th grade which is a statement of courses at the high school we've had a change in teachers in our theater program and so we reinstated musical theater 1 and 2 and technical theater so what was happening prior to this was those courses were offered outside of the school day and we're in conjunction with the productions so the spring production and the fall production and so this puts it back into the school day allowing wider access for students and it's not tied to the production anymore so it's allowed students to study musical theater without being a member of the cast of the after school production and then we worked on alignment with the musical theater program at the middle school and then finally the small adjustments so most departments will have one or two courses that will adjust each year. I don't bring a lot of those to you because they're not big enough to feel like it's not a good use of your time but the ones that I wanted to highlight are the So with the development of the character with the bringing in the resource of character strong some of that resource is divided in a way that grade levels were sort of overlapping with one another on what they were doing so a child could experience the same lesson multiple times because of decisions that teachers were making so we developed a scope and sequence for it to say that these were the lessons that should go with kindergarten, these are lessons that should go with first grade, et cetera, and that has proven to be helpful to the teachers and I think will be more engaging for the children because there will be new lessons each year. And then elementary phonics continues to be a place for us to study and the addition of elementary grammar in making sure that we have a good solid scope and sequence.

I don't bring a lot of those to you because they're not big enough to feel like it's not a good use of your time but the ones that I wanted to highlight are the So with the development of the character with the bringing in the resource of character strong some of that resource is divided in a way that grade levels were sort of overlapping with one another on what they were doing so a child could experience the same lesson multiple times because of decisions that teachers were making so we developed a scope and sequence for it to say that these were the lessons that should go with kindergarten, these are lessons that should go with first grade, et cetera, and that has proven to be helpful to the teachers and I think will be more engaging for the children because there will be new lessons each year. And then elementary phonics continues to be a place for us to study and the addition of elementary grammar in making sure that we have a good solid scope and sequence. So as we've been training all of our teachers with letters, we've been making different decisions about what the phonics instruction looks like within the classrooms as well as just like what the sound walls and those kinds of things look like in the classrooms and so developing those tools in order to be aligned across the system. What questions do you have? I'll be really easy.

What questions do you have? I'll be really easy. I want to thank you so much for answering every question I had emailed to you before you got them all in there. No problem. I always struggle with this because I think that the boards of education weighing in on curriculum has basically been a negative process in a lot of cases so I don't have a lot of input on this but I'm going to break my own rule and note that some very activist and vocal constituents have over the years observed that there were not a lot of middle school literacy texts with female protagonists and there is now one in the eighth grade and I think that's a positive development. That's my comment. I'll also say with the middle school rewrite. With the literacy rewrite at the middle school some of what our decision at the time was in increasing the volume of reading and writing was to keep some of the core lit texts the same as they are right now because we have a process and it's like a financial process and a decision making process to cycle core lit texts in and out and so that continues to be work that we'll continue to do and diversifying the collection is one of our goals as a part of that work so I think you'll continue to see movement in that way.

I'll also say with the middle school rewrite. With the literacy rewrite at the middle school some of what our decision at the time was in increasing the volume of reading and writing was to keep some of the core lit texts the same as they are right now because we have a process and it's like a financial process and a decision making process to cycle core lit texts in and out and so that continues to be work that we'll continue to do and diversifying the collection is one of our goals as a part of that work so I think you'll continue to see movement in that way. So I'll just say seven words you said that were really important because we also and again I'm not speaking on behalf of like speaking or not on behalf of but just articulating what I've heard from constituents is there's been a criticism of it seems like there's less reading and writing in the curriculum especially in the elementary and middle school and you said emphasis on increasing the volume of reading and writing so those seven words are very important and I want to make sure that I repeated them so that it's heard because I know that Nisha you've also heard that.