One-in-Five: The Story of Fresno County's Move Toward Instructional Coherence Through Adoption & Implementation Support
A Case Study by The High-Quality Instructional Materials Learning Partners Coaltion (HQIM-LPC)
Nearly one in five Fresno County students is a designated English learner. So when California released its new list of math materials, Math Coordinator Meagan Thompson made centering multilingual learners (MLLs) in math adoptions “a non-negotiable.” Historically, when adoption periods came about, county offices hosted an open-house curriculum fair for educators to browse through the options. She replaced this typical one-off curriculum fair with a two-year, grant-funded plan for 18 districts. UnboundEd facilitated the series, with a full-day session from the English Learners Success Forum, which culminated with a more structured curriculum fair and continued past adoption into implementation.
In Year 1, districts trained first and went to the curriculum fair last. They built teams that included MLL specialists, wrote vision statements, and used ELSF’s Math Must-Haves to set specific MLL criteria before meeting publishers. In Year 2, implementation networks are keeping that focus in classrooms through Integrity Walks and deliberate practice with the Math Language Routines. All participating districts now have a research-based math vision and clear review criteria. Early classroom observations show more student discourse. The lesson for county offices: coherence happens when everyonesings from the same songbook, and in Fresno that song is that every student can do rigorous math.
