To: The Santa Rosa County School Board and Superintendent

We, the undersigned parents, teachers, staff, and community members of Santa Rosa County, respectfully request a thorough and transparent review of the current elementary curriculum implementation, including curriculum pacing, assessments, grading practices, and the overall amount of testing being required of students.

We believe in high academic standards. We believe students should be challenged, held accountable, and provided with rigorous instruction. Our concern is not about rigor itself. Our concern is whether the current implementation is supporting student learning and whether the data and experiences of our teachers and students are being adequately examined.

We are hearing and seeing significant concerns.

Veteran teachers with 10, 15, and 20+ years of classroom experience—educators who have experienced multiple curriculum adoptions—are raising serious concerns about the current implementation.

Parents are reporting students becoming frustrated and discouraged by assessments. In some cases, children who have historically been strong readers are beginning to question their own abilities after repeatedly receiving low assessment scores.

We have also heard concerns about students who performed at Levels 4 and 5 on beginning-of-year FAST ELA assessments subsequently receiving scores in the 50–65% range on HMH weekly assessments.

If these patterns are occurring across significant numbers of students, they warrant examination rather than being dismissed as simply an adjustment to increased rigor.

There are also concerns regarding:

The pace at which curriculum is expected to be taught
The frequency and volume of assessments
The difficulty and wording of some assessment questions
Whether assessments are appropriately measuring the standards and skills they are intended to measure
The grading scale being applied to student performance
The amount of instructional time devoted to assessment, analysis, reteaching, and reassessment
The impact of these practices on students who require additional support
The impact on high-achieving and gifted students
The reduction of teacher flexibility and professional autonomy resulting from common pacing, common assessments, and common grading practices
Assessment should inform instruction—not become instruction.

We are particularly concerned about how “backward planning” is being implemented.

Effective backward design begins with standards and desired learning outcomes and then develops instruction and assessment to measure those outcomes.

Parents and educators deserve clarity regarding whether current instructional practices are instead becoming increasingly driven by specific assessments and question formats.

For years, educators and parents have heard the importance of not “teaching to the test.” Yet teachers are now being asked to study assessments, plan around them, prepare students for particular question types, administer common assessments, analyze results, reteach material, reassess students, and repeat the process.

We believe there is an important distinction between using assessment data to improve instruction and allowing assessments to dictate instruction.

Teachers deserve professional respect and autonomy.

Santa Rosa County has exceptional teachers who have demonstrated their ability to produce strong student achievement.

A curriculum adoption should not be interpreted as blanket approval of every assessment, pacing requirement, grading practice, or implementation mandate subsequently attached to that curriculum.

We believe experienced classroom teachers should have a meaningful voice in evaluating whether these practices are working in their classrooms.

Parents deserve transparency.

We respectfully request that the district provide clear answers to the following:

What assessment requirements are actually part of the HMH curriculum, and which requirements have been added or mandated by the district?
How were the HMH assessments evaluated for validity, reliability, grade-level appropriateness, and alignment with Florida standards before being implemented?
What data is the district currently seeing from these assessments across elementary schools and grade levels?
How does student performance on these assessments compare with FAST and other established measures of student achievement?
How were the current pacing expectations established, and what input did classroom teachers have in developing them?
How was the current grading scale determined, and what evidence supports its use?
How much instructional time is currently being devoted to assessments, assessment preparation, data analysis, reteaching, and reassessment?
What process exists for teachers and administrators to challenge or flag assessment questions they believe are unclear, developmentally inappropriate, or misaligned with the standards?
We respectfully request the following actions.

We ask the School Board and Superintendent to:

1. Conduct a formal review of the current elementary curriculum implementation, including pacing, assessments, grading, and testing requirements.

2. Review student assessment data across elementary schools and grade levels, including comparisons between HMH assessments and FAST performance where appropriate.

3. Gather structured feedback from classroom teachers and administrators regarding the curriculum’s implementation, workload, pacing, assessments, and impact on students.

4. Evaluate the validity and standards alignment of the current common assessments, including a review of questions that educators have identified as problematic or unclear.

5. Review the current grading practices and determine whether they accurately communicate student mastery of grade-level standards.

6. Evaluate the amount of instructional time devoted to testing and assessment-related activities.

7. Review the current pacing expectations and determine whether students and teachers are being given adequate time for instruction, practice, mastery, intervention, and enrichment.

8. Provide parents and the community with greater transparency regarding which requirements originate from HMH and which are district-created or district-mandated.

9. Establish a meaningful mechanism for teacher feedback and professional input regarding curriculum implementation and assessment practices.

10. Make adjustments where the evidence demonstrates that changes are necessary to better support student learning and teacher effectiveness.

We are not asking the district to lower standards.

We are not asking for less accountability.

We are asking the district to examine the evidence and listen to the educators and families experiencing this implementation firsthand.

Children are not simply data points, and teachers are not simply test administrators.

When experienced educators are raising concerns, when parents are reporting increasing frustration, and when students who have historically viewed themselves as successful learners begin questioning their own abilities, those concerns deserve serious examination.

We believe Santa Rosa County can maintain high expectations while also giving teachers the professional flexibility to teach, giving students adequate time to learn and master concepts, and giving parents transparency about the policies and practices affecting their children.

We respectfully ask the Santa Rosa County School Board and Superintendent to listen, examine the evidence, and be willing to make changes where the evidence demonstrates that changes are needed.

Our teachers deserve professional respect.
Our parents deserve transparency.
Our students deserve an instructional system designed around learning—not simply testing.