{"id":208926,"date":"2026-03-17T23:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T23:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/208926\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T23:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T23:00:12","slug":"richardson-isd-approves-new-math-language-arts-instructional-materials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/208926\/","title":{"rendered":"Richardson ISD approves new math, language arts instructional materials"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRichardson ISD approved new math and language arts instructional materials at the March 12<\/a> school board meeting.<\/p>\n

District committees recommended expansion of the state-developed Bluebonnet Learning<\/a> curriculum for elementary math, while recommending alternative materials for elementary language arts and middle school math.<\/p>\n

The details<\/p>\n

Kelsey Karcher, RISD\u2019s director of advanced learning programs and services, served as chair of the instructional materials committee that reviewed multiple state-approved materials and recommended the new curriculums.<\/p>\n

Teachers, specialists and administrators served on the instructional committees and also sought feedback from parents and community members during the review process.<\/p>\n

The committee unanimously recommended HMH into Reading<\/a>, along with its bilingual Spanish curriculum Arriba la Lectura, for RISD\u2019s elementary reading and language arts curriculum over the state-developed Bluebonnet Learning.<\/p>\n

Karcher said the committee chose HMH into Reading due to its use of authentic literature, alignment with state standards, digital tools and compatibility of English and Spanish resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether they\u2019re teaching from English materials or Spanish, [students] are going to still be able to collaborate and work together with other students,\u201d Karcher said.<\/p>\n

The committee reviewed three curriculum products for elementary math and recommended the state\u2019s Bluebonnet Learning, which has already been in place at 14 campuses. Karcher said the curriculum is Texas-specific and closely aligns with state standards and the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who are in year three of using [Bluebonnet math] are seeing really promising student growth,\u201d Karcher said.<\/p>\n

The committee recommended Savvas Learning Center<\/a> over Bluebonnet for the math curriculum from sixth grade through Algebra 1. Karcher said Savvas was chosen because of its flexible instructional design, real-world application, multilingual resources and easy-to-use instructional tools for teachers.<\/p>\n

Some context<\/p>\n

In 2023, RISD introduced new math and language arts materials provided by the Texas Education Agency<\/a> at 14 elementary campuses in order to address post-COVID 19 learning recovery.<\/p>\n

For the 2025-2026 school year, TEA rebranded and updated these materials to Bluebonnet Math and Bluebonnet Reading Language Arts. The Bluebonnet Learning materials are the first state-developed instructional materials in Texas.<\/p>\n

The RISD campuses utilizing the TEA-provided math curriculum transitioned to Bluebonnet Math this school year, while the campuses using the language arts curriculum continued to use the older resources.<\/p>\n

The Bluebonnet reading and language arts materials have been criticized<\/a> for frequent biblical references that some argue could isolate students with different religious beliefs. Proponents<\/a> say it will help close student achievement gaps and reduce teacher workloads.<\/p>\n

Last month, the State Board of Education ruled<\/a> that the TEA must correct roughly 4,200 errors in its elementary and middle school curriculum. Errors in the Bluebonnet Learning materials include improperly licensed images, formatting errors, typos and factual errors.<\/p>\n

Superintendent Tabitha Branum said the errors were identified in the reading and language arts materials, not the math materials that RISD adopted, and were a key reason why the RISD committee did not recommend moving forward with the Bluebonnet language arts curriculum.<\/p>\n

Also of note<\/p>\n

The school board also approved<\/a> close to $2.6 million in state grant funding at the March 12 meeting, most of which will support implementation of the new curriculum.<\/p>\n

Additional funding included $18,500 for an AP Computer Science Principles course and $100,000 for an Additional Days School Year<\/a> summer program, which would address summer learning loss at several elementary schools.<\/p>\n

Going forward<\/p>\n

Branum said the new reading and language arts curriculum would be adopted first this fall, while the campuses not currently using Bluebonnet math would implement it in fall 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, this is a resource,\u201d Branum said. \u201cThe most important thing in our classroom is our amazing teachers. … That\u2019s why we really lean on what our teachers feel like they need to continue to bring student achievement to our highest level.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richardson ISD approved new math and language arts instructional materials at the March 12 school board meeting. District…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[60272,11134,72995,81960,81959,160,162,161,5810,8789,6549],"class_list":["post-208926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-bluebonnet-learning","tag-curriculum","tag-instructional-materials","tag-language-arts","tag-math","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-richardson-isd","tag-school-board","tag-tea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}