• ACS Instructional Frameworks

    Background

    The Asheville City Schools Strategic Plan, "Excellence with Equity!", was created as a roadmap for our district through 2020. In the 2015-16 school year, the ACS Teaching and Learning Team identified six Teaching and Learning Essentials rooted in the Common Core Standards to help guide the instructional practices of the district (academic vocabulary, close reading of text, writing with evidence, make sense of problems and persevere in solving, construct viable arguments and critique reasons, and model with mathematics). Building from these six essentials, the Teaching and Learning Department collaborated with a team of expert teachers to create instructional frameworks for the district. This team of teachers, representing all grade spans, disciplines, and schools in the district, started collaborating during the spring of 2016.

    In the summer of 2017, the teacher team worked to articulate the connection between the ACS Instructional Frameworks, Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) and Integrated Comprehensive Systems (ICS) Equity Work. The frameworks have been revised to make them more user-friendly and to help staff integrate them in their everyday practice. All of the frameworks are grounded in the district strategic plan and Common Core standards and are vertically aligned to include shared practices and strategies.

    Purpose

    The ACS Instructional Frameworks are designed to provide guidance for planning in all our classrooms and decision making in the district. These frameworks will serve a variety of purposes, including to:

    • decrease the achievement gap through rigorous, relevant, and responsive instruction;
    • help teachers put into practice the district strategic plan with a focus on The Whole Child and Academic Achievement;
    • serve as the foundation for the district and school-based professional development;
    • drive the work of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs);
    • inform the writing of School Improvement Plans and the work of School Improvement Teams;
    • guide the decision making around building schedules and assigning staff responsibilities;
    • support the writing of teachers’ Professional Development Plans (PDPs); and
    • provide the foundation for curricular development, including the alignment of pacing guides, the creation of assessments, and development of unit and lesson plans.