The DC State Board of Education (SBOE) will hold its monthly public meeting on Wednesday, December 16, 2020, at 5:30 p.m.
At the meeting, the State Board will consider a resolution that would adopt the Social Studies Standards Advisory Committee’s (SSSAC) Guiding Principles. SBOE said the Guiding Principles focus on ensuring that revised DC Social Studies Standards will include fewer, higher, clearer rigorous standards that will be coherent, developmentally appropriate and vertically aligned across grades Pre-K–12.
SBOE said the principles also push for revised standards that expand on the types of skills and knowledge to which all District students should be guaranteed access (e.g., digital literacy, student agency, democratic citizenship, power & bias), as well as recognize that the world our students are growing up in is—more than ever before—globally interconnected and culturally and racially diverse. The work of the SSSAC will transition to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) in 2021 with their Technical Writing Committee.
The State Board will hear from a panel to discuss partnerships they have built with schools and the community in providing equitable outdoor learning options and other programming to District families looking for an alternative means of in-person instruction. Panelists will draw from their experience pre-pandemic as well as during the past eight months. The State Board looks forward to inquiring about any recommendations that can be garnered for schools across the District as they look towards the third quarter of the school year and beyond.
As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread globally, the State Board is taking the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of our members, staff, and public. Therefore, this meeting will be held as a video web conference. Materials for the State Board meetings can be found on our meeting website. For the most up-to-date information on the District’s COVID-19 response, please visit coronavirus.dc.gov.
The DC State Board of Education is an independent agency within the Government of the District of Columbia that advises the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), the District’s state education agency. The State Board is comprised of nine elected representatives, each representing their respective wards, with one member representing DC at large, and two appointed student representatives. The State Board approves statewide education policies and sets academic standards, while OSSE oversees education within the District and manages federal education funding.
More information about the SBOE can be found at sboe.dc.gov.
