The Curriculum In Focus project presented our first units to 130 middle school science teachers on August 29 and 30, 2001.

A cursory review of the evaluation sheets reveals that most participants found the sessions very helpful. Almost all will use some of the curriculum and many will use all of it. We will prepare a more thorough compilation of responses in the next few weeks.

A few of the comments from our participants today:

Excellent! Excellent! Thank you all!!

This project is wonderful. Keep it up!!

One of the best presentations I've been to in Oakland. You did a great job.

Great work. Thank you. I will try to help more.

Great presentation. Thanks for a great start at the beginning of the year.

You are awesome. This is incredibly well organized! Bravo!

Really great and well-rounded program. We've been waiting for this day.

Thanks for doing all this work for my students and me.

Inspiring to see teachers working together for all the teachers in the District! With such heart and applied expertise. Thank you!

A hundred thousand thank yous and blessings.

Important work

I liked the tone the presenters used with us. Relaxed, fun, explorative! Thanks for all the materials!!

I found the workshops to be informative, interesting and helpful. Thanks to the presenters. A lot of time and effort was put into making a great presentation. You were great! Great! Great!

I appreciate all the work you (plural) put into this!

Thanks very much. Relaxing, fun, very do-able. 1000% improvement over last year.

The workshop is GREAT!!

This has been extremely helpful. This is the first district workshop I have been to with interesting activities that tie to the standards. Thank you so much.

The binder program is the most structured and useful I've seen so far. I have no science background and only found out yesterday that Ill be teaching physical science, and my site's textbooks aren't ready. I was in a huge panic. But now I have a great resource and sense of structure to begin with & now I'm very hopeful about the beginning of the year!

One of the most useful workshops I've been to. It was a workshop tailored exactly to the needs of 8th grade science teachers. Excellent for new teachers -- they come away with things they can use immediately. Great for experienced teachers because there are advanced practices discussed as well.

By far, one of the best staff development we've had during these "buyback" days. Anthony et al were organized, ready for us, and the flow of both days was excellent.

I have never been more convinced that curriculum materials/texts etc. that have been developed by teachers are the best way to get teachers to change what they do.

I am really looking forward to working with the curriculum team.

You all have restored my faith in the effectiveness of the school district.