Our Curriculum

High School Curriculum

Our high school curriculum is guided by the Civitas Schools Eight Essential Curricular Principles:

1. All students take a rigorous, college-preparatory course of studies.
2. The student is at the center of the instructional design, framed by alignment principles fostering their upward academic mobility.
3. The curriculum is content-based and interdisciplinary, both contemporary and historical in scope, and referenced to the canon as an object of analysis and critique.
4. Skills development is given cross-curricular emphasis and is referenced to accountability measures, ensuring the verifiable college readiness of all students.
5. The critical thinking skills of all students are developed through an emphasis on teaching conflicting interpretations and an orientation to controversy.
6. The curriculum focuses on the civic purposes of education: educating citizens for economic and personal success.
7. The program is operated by a collaborative staff, purposefully focused on student achievement, with decisions informed by data and qualitative measurements.
8. A Civitas School is a learning community: one in which students learn as a community, and one in which students learn about community.

Elementary Curriculum

CICS Wrightwood’s curriculum and instruction model is based upon a comprehensive scope and sequence of learning objectives and performance indicators for every core subject area defined by state content standards for each discipline (i.e., reading/language arts, mathematics, science, social science).

Balanced Literacy

Balanced Literacy is an assessment-based instructional method of teaching literacy skills complete with explicit instruction in the following areas: the alphabetic principle, phonics, and word study, phonemic awareness, comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, writing strategies and the writing process. There are also opportunities for teaching spelling, vocabulary, grammar, usage, and mechanics, penmanship, and listening, speaking, and viewing while participating in actual reading and writing activities within a multicultural context.

Core Knowledge

Our Science and Social Studies curriculum is driven by Core Knowledge. Core Knowledge is a widely used curriculum that uses a research-based sequence of information to promote critical thinking.

Saxon Math

Our Math Program is driven by Saxon Math, a research based and highly effective mathematics program.  It is the only major math program that systematically distributes instruction, practice and assessment throughout the academic year.

1033 W. Van Buren St., Suite 640
Chicago, IL 60607
312.733.6790
© 2012 Civitas Schools