Special to the Southside Reporter

As achievement standards and student expectations continue to grow more rigorous, teachers must continue to add to their “tool box” of skills and resources in order to remain effective and successful in their efforts in the classroom.

The South San Antonio Independent School District has developed a plan to help its teachers plan and deliver lessons that meet the needs of all students.

As soon as the students were bid farewell for the summer, a cadre of 50 South San teachers, representing all grade levels and content areas, embarked on a project designed to provide all teachers, experienced as well as novice, a means of meeting the instructional needs of their students.

Lesson planning will be enhanced for district teachers, due to the fact that they will now be provided with tools that include topic maps, scope and sequence lessons, assessments and a wealth of resources that support the lessons.

Consideration and attention was given to all student populations, such as special education, bilingual, ESOL and gifted and talented students.

These 50 curriculum writers worked together from June 16 to 27 to identify the most effective methods, resources and tools to help their fellow teachers in the classroom when classes resume in August.

The advantage of this project is that the topic maps, scope and sequence lesson, assessments and resources have been downloaded on the district Web site.

Teachers can access the information in their classrooms, and also from their home computers. They will no longer need to rely on cumbersome curriculum binders to do their lesson planning.