Pasco County Schools is among a dozen school districts across the country selected to receive a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant, as part of the Professional Learning Partnerships Initiative.
The school district will use the $1 million grant in partnership with the initiative to prepare teachers for a new middle school math curriculum, Illustrative Math (Open Up Resources).
The grant money will be used to provide teacher with professional learning to ensure that instruction is meeting the needs of all students.
Superintendent Kurt Browning said the district is honored to be selected by the Gates Foundation for the opportunity.
Browning said the grant will help the district to strengthen performance in mathematics at the middle school level, by ensuring teachers receive professional learning opportunities to help them effectively deliver the curriculum to students.
“Students will be able to make connections between what they learned in elementary school, to help them prepare for high school,” Browning said.
The district has already implemented a new mathematics curriculum at the elementary level, and this training will help teachers help students make a seamless transition at middle school, Browning said.
“My end goal is to make sure that when students graduate, they are prepared,” Browning said.
“It was a competitive grant,” Browning said. “We’re doing great things in Pasco. We’re thinking outside the box, and we’re thinking differently.”
Pasco has made significant efforts to provide teachers with resources to help them understand the Florida Standards and to deliver standards-aligned instruction, according to a district news release. The work will continue with this grant and the Professional Learning Partnerships Initiative.
Published October 2, 2019
