BUSD is now in the third year of a multi-year mathematics improvement and curriculum adoption process. We began in 2024 with Meeting of Math Minds, a yearlong TK–12 process to study our current math program, engage educators and families, review research and the California Mathematics Framework, and develop a shared vision for mathematics in BUSD.
In 2025–26, we moved into the TK–5 curriculum review process. Our math team began with 23 recently approved state-approved programs, conducted an initial review, and brought a smaller group of materials to the full adoption committee. The committee then spent three release days reviewing and rating materials on a standardized rubric before reaching consensus on the programs to pilot.
This year is about learning. We have 57 educators participating across all 11 elementary schools, including RTI and Special Education staff. We are piloting Bridges first and Amplify Desmos second, with professional learning, classroom visits, Learning Labs, teacher collaboration, and ongoing feedback throughout the year.
No adoption decision has been made. What we learn from educators, students, families, classroom implementation, and our focal student communities will inform a recommendation to the Board in Spring 2027. We anticipate beginning the secondary review process in Spring 2027, followed by a secondary pilot during the 2027–28 school year.
The information below provides additional context about the process, the research informing our work, what we are learning through the pilot, and how we will make a final recommendation.
- How has BUSD’s math work developed over time?
BUSD’s math work began in 2024, well before the District began reviewing specific curriculum materials.
From August 2024 through May 2025, the Meeting of Math Minds met monthly and brought together 22 K–12 educators, administrators, community partners, and BUSD families. The group examined our current math program, student experiences and outcomes, the California Mathematics Framework, and relevant research. That work ultimately informed the development of a BUSD math vision and framework.
Family perspectives were also an important part of this phase. The District surveyed families and received 676 responses.
In 2025–26, the work moved into curriculum review. Six Math TSAs and coaches spent 7.5 days conducting preliminary research, developing the curriculum review tool, examining research and external reviews, attending materials fairs, and narrowing 23 state-adopted programs before the full adoption committee began its work.
This has been a multi-year process grounded in research, data, educator expertise, and community input. As the work continues, we are also working to make each phase of the process, the learning behind it, and the opportunities for engagement more visible and accessible to our community.
- How is research on how students learn mathematics informing this work?
BUSD’s math work incorporates research-informed practices about how students develop mathematical understanding, fluency, and proficiency.
This includes the importance of explicit instruction, purposeful practice, fluency and automaticity, strong foundational knowledge, and systematic intervention for students who need additional support. These principles have been part of both our curriculum review and our broader work to strengthen mathematics instruction.
The adoption committee specifically examined recent research on arithmetic fluency. Our Math Intervention Team reviewed the 2021 Institute of Education Sciences (IES) practice guide focused on supporting students who struggle with elementary mathematics. Staff have also participated in professional learning related to math intervention, learning acceleration, high-quality instructional materials, and curriculum adoption.
Rather than anchoring our work to any single label or framework, our focus is on the evidence: What does research tell us students need to become strong mathematicians, and do the materials and instructional practices we are considering support teachers in providing those experiences?
That is the lens we are using throughout this process.
- What is BUSD’s approach to explicit instruction and student thinking in mathematics?
BUSD believes students need clear, explicit instruction, appropriate scaffolding, and teacher guidance as they develop mathematical understanding and proficiency.
Students should not be routinely expected to discover important mathematical concepts or procedures on their own before they have the knowledge and support needed to do so successfully.
At the same time, explicit instruction and student thinking are not competing approaches. Effective mathematics instruction may include teacher modeling, guided practice, purposeful repetition and practice, discussion of different strategies, and opportunities for students to apply what they have learned to new problems.
The balance will look different depending on the mathematical content, the students, and where they are in the learning process.
An important question during the pilot is whether the materials give teachers the tools and flexibility to provide strong explicit instruction while also helping students explain their thinking, make connections, practice important skills, and apply their learning.
- How were Bridges and Desmos selected for the pilot?
Bridges and Desmos were selected for field testing, not adoption.
The process began with 23 state-adopted programs included on California’s recently published instructional materials list and aligned with the new California Mathematics Framework.
A preliminary team reviewed materials, research, and external reviews, attended materials fairs, and developed recommendations for the full adoption committee. The full committee then spent three release days reviewing and rating materials against BUSD’s criteria before reaching consensus on which programs should move forward to the pilot phase.
The purpose of the pilot is to move beyond labels and examine how the materials actually work in classrooms. Rather than accepting or rejecting a program based on whether it is described as “inquiry,” “discovery,” “explicit,” or something else, we want to look closely at what the materials ask teachers and students to do and what happens when educators use them with BUSD students.
That is what the pilot is designed to help us learn.
- Why is classroom piloting an important part of the review process?
BUSD has spent the past two years engaging in research, community engagement, planning, and curriculum review. The next step is to learn from what happens when materials are actually used in classrooms.
A pilot allows us to answer important questions that cannot be fully answered through research reviews, publisher materials, or committee analysis alone. We want to understand whether the lessons are workable within the instructional time available, whether they provide sufficient explicit instruction and practice, how well they support fluency development, and how they work for students who enter with unfinished learning.
We are also looking closely at the experiences of multilingual learners and students with disabilities, the support teachers need to implement the materials well, and the feedback we receive from educators, students, and families.
What we learn during the pilot will directly inform the next steps. If the field test surfaces significant concerns or gaps, those findings will matter in the committee’s evaluation.
The pilot is not something that happens after a decision has been made. It is part of the evidence we will use to make the decision.
- How will BUSD evaluate the pilot?
The pilot includes 57 educators across all 11 TK–5 schools and every elementary grade level, along with 10 RTI and Special Education representatives.
Bridges will be piloted from August through November, followed by Desmos from December through March.
Throughout the year, BUSD will gather evidence through classroom visits and coaching, Learning Labs, cross-site collaboration, ongoing data and feedback collection, and family input.
Our evaluation will look beyond whether educators simply “liked” one program more than another. We want to understand how well each set of materials supports strong instruction and student learning across BUSD classrooms, including the quality of explicit instruction and practice, student engagement and understanding, support for students with unfinished learning, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities, and the feasibility of implementation for teachers.
The adoption team will review the full body of evidence from the pilot before developing a recommendation for the Board in Spring 2027.
The goal is not to identify the most popular program. It is to determine which materials best support our students, our educators, and the mathematics instruction we want to provide across BUSD.
- How is the pilot considering students who need additional support?
Supporting students with diverse learning needs is central to both the pilot and BUSD’s broader mathematics work.
The pilot intentionally includes RTI and Special Education staff so that the review reflects the needs of students who may require additional scaffolds, intervention, or specialized support. The curriculum review tool also incorporates recommendations from the English Learner Success Forum to help us examine how well materials support multilingual learners.
At the same time, curriculum adoption is only one part of the work. BUSD also has a Math Intervention Team that has studied the Institute of Education Sciences guidance on mathematics intervention, developed Tier 1 fluency supports, provided training for interventionists, and begun additional work around diagnostics and progress monitoring.
A strong core curriculum is essential, but it is not a substitute for a strong intervention system. Our goal is to strengthen both so that students receive high-quality grade-level instruction while also getting the targeted support they need to make progress.
- How is BUSD evaluating whether the materials are feasible to implement well?
Implementation matters. A curriculum can be strong on paper and still not be the right fit if the conditions required to use it well are not realistic across BUSD schools.
The pilot gives us an opportunity to examine what implementation actually requires of teachers, including instructional time, preparation, materials management, pacing, facilitation, and professional learning and support.
We also want to understand whether those expectations can be sustained consistently across all 11 elementary schools, not just in ideal circumstances or in a small number of classrooms.
Feasibility is therefore an important part of the evaluation. We should not adopt a curriculum that depends on conditions we cannot realistically and consistently provide.
The pilot will help us determine not only whether the materials are strong, but whether BUSD can support educators in implementing them well.
Throughout the pilot we are gathering educator feedback weekly, and evaluating students progress through both our universal screening procedures, and the content embedded assessments.
- How are families being engaged throughout the math adoption process?
Family engagement has been part of BUSD’s math work from the beginning.
The Meeting of Math Minds was a yearlong process that, for the first time in BUSD, brought together TK–12 educators, families, community partners, and district leaders to examine our math program and develop a shared vision for mathematics. We also heard directly from 676 families through our family math survey.
As we move through the pilot, we are expanding how families can stay informed and participate. Rather than relying primarily on stand-alone district meetings, our central team and Math Teacher Leaders will join elementary math and other school based event nights across the district. These will give more families opportunities to see the materials, understand what students are experiencing, ask questions, and share feedback during the 26/27 school year..
This spring, we will also bring the work to district committees, particularly those representing our focal student groups, so that those perspectives are part of the evaluation before a final recommendation is developed.
Our goal is not simply to create more opportunities for engagement. It is to broaden participation so that the feedback informing our decision reflects the range of students and families BUSD serves.
- How does the elementary adoption fit into BUSD’s TK–12 math vision?
BUSD’s goal is a coherent mathematics experience from TK through 12th grade.
That is why the Meeting of Math Minds was designed as a K–12 process and why the District developed a TK–12 math vision before beginning the elementary curriculum adoption.
Coherence, however, does not require adopting new curriculum across every grade span at the same time. Elementary, middle, and high school mathematics have different instructional needs, schedules, course pathways, and implementation considerations. Each deserves a thoughtful review process that reflects those differences while remaining connected to our shared TK–12 vision.
Curriculum adoption also requires significant time, staffing, professional learning, and financial resources. In BUSD, we believe we can do anything, but we cannot do everything at once. Sequencing this work allows us to give each phase the attention and support it requires while continuing to build toward a coherent TK–12 mathematics program.
The elementary adoption is therefore one part of a larger, long-term effort to strengthen mathematics instruction across BUSD.
- How is BUSD thinking about enrichment, acceleration, and access to advanced mathematics?
BUSD believes that access to strong mathematics instruction, appropriate challenge, and opportunities to deepen learning should not depend on a family’s ability to pay for outside programs or tutoring.
We also know that families seek outside mathematics experiences for many different reasons. Participation in programs such as Math Circle, Mathnasium, or private tutoring can provide useful information about what families are seeking, but it does not, by itself, tell us why a family made that choice or whether the District’s curriculum was the reason.
There is a broader and important conversation for BUSD about mathematics enrichment, acceleration, and pathways across grade levels. That work should include questions about how we ensure students who are ready for additional challenge have meaningful opportunities within our system and how those opportunities are equitably accessible.
The TK–5 curriculum adoption can contribute to that work by helping us select strong core instructional materials, but it cannot resolve every question related to enrichment, acceleration, or secondary mathematics pathways.
Those questions are important, and they warrant focused attention as part of our broader TK–12 mathematics work.
- How is BUSD applying lessons from our literacy work to mathematics?
Our experience strengthening literacy instruction has reinforced several important lessons that also apply to mathematics.
We need a clear instructional vision. We need to examine the evidence carefully, select strong instructional materials, invest in professional learning, pay attention to implementation, and monitor student outcomes so that we can adjust when needed.
Those lessons are informing the math adoption process.
At the same time, literacy and mathematics are different disciplines. We should not assume that every debate, instructional approach, or lesson from literacy has a direct one-to-one parallel in mathematics. Our responsibility is to look carefully at the research and evidence specific to math, understand what our students and educators need, and evaluate whether the materials support those needs in practice.
The common thread is not a particular instructional label. It is our commitment to evidence, strong implementation, and continuous improvement.
- How is BUSD using research to guide mathematics instruction and curriculum decisions?
Research gives us strong direction in several important areas. Explicit teaching matters. Purposeful practice matters. Fluency and automaticity matter. Feedback matters. Prior knowledge matters. And students who struggle need systematic, targeted support.
Those principles are part of the lens BUSD is using to evaluate mathematics instruction and instructional materials.
Our focus is not on debating whether we are “for” or “against” a particular label or body of research. The more useful questions are: Are these research-informed practices present in the materials? Are they showing up consistently in instruction? Are they supporting the range of learners we serve? And what does the evidence from our pilot tell us?
Research helps establish what we should be looking for. The pilot helps us understand how well the materials support those practices in BUSD classrooms.
- What can families expect from BUSD as the pilot and adoption process continues?
BUSD has not made a decision to adopt Bridges or Desmos. Both programs are being piloted so that we can learn from their use in our classrooms before making a recommendation.
Just as it would be premature to decide now that either program should be adopted, it would also be premature to rule either one out before the pilot is complete.
What we can commit to is a thoughtful, transparent process that takes the questions being raised seriously and uses the pilot to investigate them.
Families can expect us to:
- Communicate clearly. Make the process, timeline, pilot experience, and decision-making criteria easier to understand and follow.
- Conduct a meaningful pilot. Surface concerns and challenges when they emerge rather than explain them away.
- Stay grounded in research and evidence. Continue examining explicit instruction, practice and fluency, cognitive science, conceptual understanding, intervention, and implementation.
- Listen to multiple perspectives. Use feedback from educators, students, families, specialists, and classroom observations as part of the evidence.
- Maintain a TK–12 lens. Connect the elementary adoption to BUSD’s broader mathematics vision and long-term work toward a coherent mathematics experience across grade levels.
- Let the evidence inform the recommendation. The purpose of the pilot is to learn. What we learn will matter in determining what comes next.
Our commitment is not to a particular curriculum. Our commitment is to choosing materials that best support strong mathematics teaching and learning for BUSD students.
