Chico Unified says NGSS rollout increasing student engagement; teachers report mixed assessment results

Chico Unified School District officials and teachers on May 15 gave the board a multi-hour update on the Next Generation Science Standards rollout and what it has meant in classrooms from kindergarten through high school.

District staff described an adoption timeline that placed Amplify as the core science program for elementary and middle grades in 2021 and CK-12 as the high school core last year. Elementary teachers said they are integrating NGSS with newly emphasized reading routines, using field journals, non-fiction texts and hands-on labs to build science literacy and vocabulary. "I fell in love with it and I found out my students totally fell in love with it too," said Megan Callahan, Chapman Elementary art teacher who leads the school's drumming program and supports science integration.

Middle-school teachers described developing shared units and a schoolwide focus on claim–evidence–reasoning (CER) writing and place-based phenomena. "We started an Observation Inquiry model and built tools that integrate cause-and-effect and CER," said Lauren Jan, a seventh-grade teacher at Bidwell Junior High.

At Chico High, teachers said the district’s three-course model — Biology: The Living Earth; Physics: The Universe; and Chemistry: The Earth System — replaced an older two-track system and created heterogeneous course groupings so more students can access college-preparatory science. "Enrollment in science classes increased by 20% in the last two years and AP enrollment has gone from about 40 students to over 200," said Mark Kesler, a Chico High teacher who spearheaded the high school implementation.

Presenters cautioned that assessment data are mixed. District staff noted that about half of elementary sites saw a dip on the 2023 California Science Test (CAST) compared with the prior year while several middle-school sites scored above the state average; presenters urged viewing two years of data with caution because of pandemic-era disruptions. Elementary teachers also said the district is still in an early stage of integrating reading and science and that more collaborative planning time and supplemental materials are needed. "We're still building the ship," said Kenji Masuda, a third-grade teacher at McManis Elementary.

Teachers across levels pointed to resource and time constraints as continuing challenges: small science budgets at some sites, the need for more hands-on activities to supplement Amplify’s simulations, and time for cross-site collaboration. District leaders said next year’s professional development will devote more hours to reading–science integration and that pilot assessments for grades 3–5 may be used to refine practice before wider adoption.

The board received the item as informational; there was no action vote on the NGSS update.