Core Curriculum and Instructional Materials
At Saratoga Union School District (SUSD), our core curriculum is designed to inspire intellectual curiosity and foster deep understanding through hands-on, engaging learning experiences. Across English Language Arts, mathematics, science and social studies, we thoughtfully select instructional materials that pair academic rigor with interactive exploration. By blending high-quality, standards-aligned content with active discovery in every subject, SUSD empowers Transitional Kindergarten (TK) through eighth-grade students to collaborate, solve real-world problems and thrive as lifelong learners.
Instructional Materials and Textbooks
The California State Board of Education (SBE) adopts content standards in the different curriculum areas to meet the requirements of state and federal law. It also adopts curriculum frameworks for TK through 12th grade in accordance with EC Section 51002, which calls for the development of “broad minimum standards and guidelines for educational programs.” Taken together, the content standards and curriculum frameworks describe what educators, content experts and professionals in the field expect K–12 students to know and be able to do. The frameworks provide direction to publishers in the criteria for the evaluation of instructional materials. These criteria are used to select, through the state adoption process set forth in EC sections 60200-60206, instructional materials for kindergarten through grade eight (K–8).
The process for selection of instructional materials in SUSD is as follows:
- Formation of teacher and administrator committee
- Review of current program in the appropriate content area
- Review of adoption options
- Establishment of district lens*
- Pilot of materials
- Evaluation of materials by students and teachers
- Parent presentations for review and evaluation of materials
- Synthesis and analysis of evaluations
- Committee recommendation to the Board of Education and Board approval
- Purchase of materials
- Professional development
- The district lens is a document created to describe the goals of our instructional program in each content area.
Below is a look at some of the latest SUSD Instructional Materials broken down by grade level.
