Delaware grants $3.8M to schools for instructional materia

DOVER – Delaware has approved a $3.8 million grant for school districts to fund professional learning in the use of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM). The comprehensive materials are clear lesson structures and resources to provide equitable access to grade-level content according to the Delaware Department of Education (DDOE). 

“Providing every teacher with standards-aligned, high-quality instructional materials and the professional learning teachers need to use those materials effectively are foundational steps to ensuring every student in Delaware leaves school ready for college, career, and life,” then-Secretary of Education Susan Bunting said in a press release  about HQIM last year. 

The DDOE hosts the Reimagining Professional Learning Grants (RPL) program that has awarded $3.8 million in 15 grants to 90 schools for more than 60,000 students statewide in 2022-2023. 

The RPL funds are divided as follows:

• Appoquinimink School District – $43,845 
• Brandywine School District – $1,052,724 
• Cape Henlopen School District – $147,468
• Capital School District – $431,358
• Caesar Rodney School District – $476,908
• Christina School District – $349,273
• Indian River School District – $483,215
• Red Clay Consolidated School District – $233,728
• Seaford School District – $596,039. 

Delaware’s effort to increase teacher capacity to implement high-quality instruction effectively provides a guideline on how to plan, teach, and assess student learning throughout the school year. HQIM provides teachers a full year’s worth of teacher and student materials that is aligned with the state’s education standard for every student to leave school ready for success in college, career, and life. 

“With these new materials, we are seeing our teachers begin to trust that students will rise to the level of expectations you have for them with the right support,” Darren Guido, supervisor of instruction at Caesar Rodney School District, said in a press statement. 

DDOE has three primary goals for RPL to support the adoption, launch, and skillful implementation of HQIM throughout the state: support all districts and charters in adopting HQIM; support districts and charters with the resources and incentives necessary to engage in professional learning that leads to skillful implementation of HQIM; and create a pool of credentialed content leaders, endorsed by DDOE. 

“At Brandywine School District, we’ll be using these funds to implement high-quality instructional materials for both Mathematics and English Language Arts for all teachers in grades 6 – 12,” said Supervisor of Mathematics, Science, and Gifted Services of Brandywine School District Michelle Hawley. “The instructional materials will focus on student-driven learning and emphasize the teacher as the facilitator or synthesizer of knowledge.”

The RPL grant program has awarded more than $12.9 million to 24 school districts since it began in 2016.