West River Eagle

Board adopts new standards in three content areas




PIERRE, S.D. – The South Da­kota Board of Education adopted new content standards in sci­ence, fine arts and educational technology earlier today.

Standards provide a road map for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level, K-12. Decisions regard­ing how to teach the standards, including decisions about cur­riculum and instructional ma­terials, are made by local school districts.

A work group of South Da­kota science educators, higher education representatives and members of the business com­munity drafted the new science standards, incorporating the lat­est research on student learning. The science standards provide a foundation for students to attain knowledge of scientific concepts and engage in the practices of sci­ence and engineering. Teachers will be offered various opportu­Board for training based on the new standards between now and spring 2018, when students will be assessed on the new standards for the first time.

The last review of South Da­kota’s science standards was conducted in 2005.

According to state law, the Board of Education must review academic content standards on a cyclical basis.

Proposed K-12 social studies standards also received a public hearing today. The board will hold another hearing on these standards at its July 27 meeting in Rapid City.

Work groups will begin meet­ing this summer to revise career and technical education con­tent standards in several career clusters. Public hearings on the standards these groups will pro­pose are scheduled to start later this year.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *