PAACT Meeting: Back to School
Parents Allied for Accountability, Conduct, and Transparency
PAACT Meeting: Back to School
WhereBaldwin Library  ·  Jeanne Lloyd Room
WhenTuesday, August 18, 2026
Time7:00 PM
Resource PresenterApril Imperio, BPS
Informed by data  ·  Driven by trust  ·  Built for students
Before We Start
Key Dates Through September
Photograph this slide. Everything on the calendar through the end of September, in one place.
31
First Bell
Tue, Aug 18
7:00 PM
PAACTBack to School Night · Baldwin Library, Jeanne Lloyd Room
Tue, Aug 25
7:00 PM
Board of EdRegular Meeting · Education & Administration Center, 31301 Evergreen Rd.
Wed, Aug 26
Staff day
DistrictTeachers Report · Red Apple Breakfast and professional learning
Mon, Aug 31
First bell
DistrictFirst Day of School · all buildings
Fri, Sep 4
All day
DistrictNo School · Labor Day Break
Mon, Sep 7
All day
DistrictNo School · Labor Day
Tue, Sep 8
6:00 PM
Board of EdStudy Session · Education & Administration Center
Tue, Sep 15
7:00 PM
Board of EdRegular Meeting · Education & Administration Center
September
TBA
PAACTSeptember Meeting · date announced at paact-birmingham.com
Per building
Watch email
Your SchoolCurriculum Night & Fall i-Ready Window · dates come from your building's newsletter
Why Tonight Exists
The Gap Between September and Conferences
The single thing parents raise with PAACT more than any other, at every grade level, in every building.
?
The Gap
What Parents Tell Us
Months of Silence
The most common concern PAACT hears
Many parents hear nothing about academic or social progress until conferences, and by then some kids have been struggling for months. Many families tell us they've never opened PowerSchool. Families have told us they left the district over exactly this.
Why It Happens
Structural, Not Personal
The honest frame
A middle school teacher sees well over a hundred students a week. Proactive updates to every family on every student is time nobody has. The silence is a stretched system defaulting to quiet, not a teacher who doesn't care.
The Good News
The Windows Already Exist
For middle and high school families, a live feed of grades and assignments, real when teachers update it and parents check it. For every family, a three-times-a-year diagnostic report and one fall evening where every teacher explains their year.
Tonight's Job
Close the Gap Yourself
You should not need to wait until November to learn how your child is doing. By the end of tonight you'll have three windows into the year and the habit of checking them, starting in the first weeks of school.
The Map for Tonight
Three Windows Into the Year
Everything tonight fits one of three windows. Together they mean you're never guessing how the year is going.
01
The Classroom
What each program is supposed to look like in the room, so you can tell the difference between "working as designed" and "worth a conversation." You can't spot off-track if you don't know what on-track looks like.
02
The Data
The live feed and the checkpoints you already have access to: PowerSchool, Schoology, the i-Ready family report, and M-STEP. Set up once, checked weekly, no permission needed.
03
The Channel
The communication you build with teachers in September, so information moves before conferences instead of at them. And what to do, calmly and credibly, when the window isn't enough.
Window One
Knowing What On-Track Looks Like
The
Classroom
A quick pass through what BPS uses, then the part you can't look up: what these programs look like in the room, and what's normal at your dinner table.
In This Window
K-12
The Curriculum at a Glance
The map, with the classroom view for every band
6-8
Middle School in the Room
Discussion becomes the job, in both subjects
9-12
High School in the Room
Course selection is the lever
Window One · The Five-Minute Version
QR code linking to the BPS K-12 Core Instructional Resources list
Scan: BPS K-12 Core
Instructional Resources
The Curriculum at a Glance
The programs your child will name this year. Michigan sets the standards; these are the vehicles BPS chose.
Reading & Writing
Arts & Letters
Great Minds | K through 8
EL
K-8
Knowledge-building literacy: weeks on one rich topic with real books, daily writing. K-2 pairs it with a daily phonics program, Magnetic Reading Foundations. High school English runs course by course, English 9 through AP and senior seminars, all listed in the district course catalog.
Mathematics
Illustrative Mathematics
Illustrative Math | K through 8
MA
K-8
Problem-based math: students work the problems first, the teacher names the math at the end. High school runs an integrated sequence, Integrated Math 1 through 3, into Precalculus, Calculus, and Statistics.
Science & Social Studies
FOSS, IQWST & TCI
Named programs by level, MI standards aligned
SC·SS
K-12
Science runs FOSS kits in elementary and IQWST units in middle school. Social studies uses Meet Michigan in third grade, the Michigan year, and TCI's Alive! series after. High school runs the Merit Curriculum credits.
Measurement
i-Ready & M-STEP
3x a year | Once each spring
TEST
K-8 · 3-11
i-Ready is the district's benchmark, three times a year, and it's your best window into your own child. M-STEP is the state's once-a-year accountability test. More on both later tonight.
Window One · Middle School
The Classroom in 6 to 8
Arts & Letters and Illustrative Math continue with heavier texts and harder problems. Two things are worth understanding going in.
QR code linking to the BPS Middle School Course Catalog
Scan for the BPS
MS Course Catalog
Reading & Writing
Argument Becomes the Job
Arts & Letters, grades 6 through 8
Discussion gets structured: students respond to each other, not just the teacher, and defend claims with textual evidence. Writing shifts to argument and analysis. "We debated the book today" is the program working.
Math
The Same Design, Turned Up
Illustrative Mathematics, grades 6 through 8
The problem-first structure continues, now applied to ratios, proportions, expressions and equations, and geometry. Eighth grade lays the pre-algebra foundation the high school sequence builds on. Group work stays central, and so does defending your reasoning out loud.
Normal · By Design
What You'll Hear at Home
Less paper comes home than elementary; the work lives in Schoology. Group work is constant and deliberate: carrying a role in a multi-day project with classmates they didn't choose is part of what's being taught.
Why It Matters
Discussion Needs a Steady Room
Both programs run on structured discussion and multi-day group work, and that only functions in a classroom with steady norms. A derailed period ripples across every student in it, five to seven periods a day. Classroom culture isn't separate from the curriculum here; it's the delivery system.
Window One · High School
Course Selection Is the Lever
One unified course catalog now covers Seaholm, Groves, and Lincoln Street, in the second year of the semester system. The Michigan Merit Curriculum sets the required credits. Everything else is chosen from that catalog.
QR code linking to the 2026-27 BPS High School Course Catalog
Scan for the 26-27
HS Course Catalog
The Fixed Part
The Required Spine
2026-27 BPS High School Course Catalog
The Michigan Merit Curriculum sets 18 required credits: four English, four math, three science, three social studies, two of the same world language, plus PE/health and an arts credit. Four more are student choice, for 22 total to graduate for the Class of 2028 and beyond. Math runs Integrated Math 1, 2, and 3, then a fourth math or math-related credit.
The Chosen Part
Standard, Honors, AP
2026-27 BPS High School Course Catalog
Most of the spine comes in multiple versions: standard, honors, and AP. Around them sits a wide elective range, from fine arts and music to career-focused courses like accounting, programming, robotics, and medical science. The catalog lists every course with its credit value, prerequisites, and grade levels. Some courses run at only one high school, with a shuttle bus available.
The Process
How Choosing Works
Each year, students select courses for the following year. Counselors, assigned by student last name, provide the materials and the deadline, and each school's College and Career Center supports the planning side. The counselor conversation is where the schedule gets set, and the catalog is the reference for what each course requires.
Why It Matters
Selections Carry Weight
The catalog itself says it plainly: selections determine class sizes, staffing, and budgets, so choose carefully. Under-chosen courses can be canceled, prerequisites determine what's reachable later, and once schedules are issued, opportunities to adjust them are limited. One catalog, read with your student before the counselor meeting, is the whole reference.
Window Two
No Permission Needed
The
Data
A live feed and two checkpoints, all of it already yours. This is the window that closes the September-to-conferences gap, and it takes one setup and ten minutes a week.
In This Window
PS
PowerSchool & Schoology
Middle and high school's live feed, rarely opened
i-R
i-Ready & M-STEP
The checkpoints, and the report worth asking for
Window Two · The Live Feed
PowerSchool & Schoology
The most requested topic ahead of tonight, and mainly a middle and high school window. One honest note up front: not every teacher uses these tools the same way, so part of tonight is learning to read the variance. Elementary families: your data window is the i-Ready report on the next slide.
PowerSchool
Grades & Attendance · The Scoreboard
What It Shows
Grades as teachers post them, attendance, and enrollment forms. For middle and high school this is where academic standing is intended to live all semester, not just at report card time.
Getting In
Parent access codes come from your building's front office in about five minutes, and the portal is linked from the district's Current Parents page. If you set up nothing else this fall, set up this.
Know This
QR code linking to the BPS PowerSchool portal
Scan to
Open
Teachers post on their own cadence and use these tools differently; learning each teacher's system is part of the setup. A quiet gradebook for a couple of weeks is normal; a quiet gradebook for six is a fair, friendly question.
Schoology
Assignments & Classwork · The Early Signal
What It Shows
Assignments, due dates, classwork, and teacher materials. Missing assignments are intended to show up here first, weeks before they surface as a grade. When a teacher keeps it current, it's the earliest warning system that exists.
The Habit
Ten minutes, once a week, with your student driving the mouse. A shared Sunday check builds their tracking skill; a nightly parental audit replaces it. You're coaching the habit, not running surveillance.
The Pattern
QR code linking to the BPS Schoology log-in
Scan to
Open
One missing assignment is a Tuesday, and a blank page may just mean this teacher posts elsewhere. A pattern of missings in a class the teacher keeps current is the conversation to have now, with your student first and the teacher second, months before conferences would have caught it.
Window Two · The Checkpoints
Two Tests, Two Different Jobs
M-STEP is the public's window into the schools. i-Ready is your window into your child, if you ask for it.
i-Ready
The District Benchmark · Your Window
Rhythm
Fall, winter, and spring, reading and math. Adaptive by design: every child sees questions above and below their level, so "it had stuff we never learned" means it's working.
Your Job
Nothing to prep and nothing to help with; it's taken at school, and it's measuring, not judging. Your job is logistics: normal sleep, normal breakfast, on time during the window, zero drama at home. The parent work starts when the report comes back.
The Ask
After every window, i-Ready generates a family report: placement, growth against targets, skill areas. It isn't always sent home automatically. Ask for it after each window. It's the clearest mid-year picture of your child that exists.
M-STEP
The State Test · The Rear-View Mirror
Rhythm
Once each spring. ELA and math run grades 3-7; eighth graders take the PSAT 8/9 instead. Science and social studies hit grades 5, 8, and 11. Results arrive the following fall, after your child has moved on. Honest, but not timely.
Its Job
The only measure that compares schools, districts, and years on one yardstick. Every school's results are public at MiSchoolData.org. Treat your own child's score as one data point beside i-Ready and classroom work, not a verdict.
Together
Fall i-Ready placement predicts spring M-STEP well. When the two disagree, one of them is missing something, and that mismatch is worth a conversation. When they agree, trust the picture.
Window Three
Built in September, Paying Off All Year
The
Channel
Data tells you what happened. The channel with your child's teachers tells you why, and it works best when it's built before anything is wrong.
In This Window
4
What Teachers Wish You Knew
Four things, straight from teachers
CN
Curriculum Night, Used Well
Walking in ready, leaving with a channel
+
When You Need More
Ways to be heard when you need more
Window Three · The Other Side of the Desk
What Teachers Wish You Knew
All four come from what teachers say consistently, in conversations and in the paper trail. All four make September easier.
4
Things
Teachers Say
Tell Us Early
The most repeated ask in teacher interviews
Diagnoses, learning needs, a rough summer, a family change, what works at home. September disclosure beats November discovery, because the teacher can loop in support staff and adjust from day one instead of reverse-engineering it in the second marking period.
Teachers Say
Get the Story First
The most repeated ask about conflict
A child's account of what happened at school is one account. Ask the teacher for theirs before reacting, and keep criticism of the teacher away from your child's ears; kids inherit your posture toward the classroom, and it walks in the door with them the next morning.
Teachers Say
Disruption Compounds
The most repeated point about the school day itself
The curriculum at every level runs on discussion and group work: problems worked out loud, ideas defended across a table. That format is powerful when the room holds and fragile when it doesn't. One derailed stretch doesn't cost one student one lesson; it costs every student in the room, and re-settling a class eats time the lesson never gets back. When teachers ask for backup on behavior, this is what they're protecting.
Teachers Say
Learning to Teach While Teaching
Teacher conversations and the contract's own provisions
Programs have changed across every level in recent years, and every change means new materials to learn, lessons rebuilt from scratch, and training time, some of it out of the classroom with a substitute in the room. The pace of that change is set above the classroom, not inside it. A teacher mid-adoption is working two jobs at once: teaching this year's students and learning next year's materials. The teachers' own contract sets aside released days for curriculum work because the load is real. Patience in a transition year isn't lowering the bar; it's reading the situation accurately.
Window Three · The Night
Curriculum Night, Used Well
It's not a conference about your child. It's the one evening teachers get to explain their year, and the parents who get the most from it walk in with the right questions.
What It Is
The Year, Explained Once
Every building, early fall
The teacher walks through the curriculum, the routines, grading, and how to reach them. It's structural, not personal: individual-child questions belong at conferences. The room rewards questions about how the year works.
Walk In With
Questions That Get Useful Answers
From tonight's material
For every teacher: what's the fastest way to reach you, and how will I hear if something slips? What are the classroom norms, and how are late work and retakes handled? Then by band. Elementary: which module is the class in, and can I see the family tip sheet? Middle: how are organization and expectations taught? High school: how does the path to the goal course run from here?
The Free Resource
Ask for the Family Tip Sheets
Great Minds publishes a family overview for every module of every grade: the topic, the books, and ways to support it at home. Ask the teacher for the current one. Feeding the module topic with library books and outings does double duty all year.
One More Thing
A Kind Word Goes Far
These programs ask a lot of teachers; the lessons are detailed and the pacing is full. A kind word about the work behind them goes further than you might think, and it opens every conversation that follows this year.
Window Three · When the Window Isn't Enough
When You Need More
Sometimes checking the data and asking nicely doesn't resolve it. You have more power than you think, and here's the information you need to make the next right choice.
QR code linking to OK2SAY, Michigan's confidential student safety tip line
OK2SAY · Michigan's
Student Safety Tip Line
The Order
Start Closest to the Classroom
Teacher, then principal, then central office, then board
Each level will ask whether you've talked to the one below it, so going in order is faster, not slower. Put it in writing, keep it specific, and keep copies. Most concerns resolve in the first two steps when they arrive calmly and in order.
The Method
Ask Good Questions
Questions open doors that accusations close
Don't just disagree; ask why. What problem was this solving? Who had input? What would it take to revisit it? A good question is often more powerful than a complaint, and it leaves the other person room to move.
Putting It Together
The First Weeks Checklist
School starts Monday, August 31. Four things worth doing before October that make the whole year easier.
01
Set up the accounts
Middle and high school: PowerSchool for grades, Schoology for classwork, five minutes at the front office, then a weekly ten-minute check with your student driving. Elementary: your version is asking for the i-Ready family report each window.
02
Go to curriculum night
And leave every classroom with one answer: how will I hear if something slips? Email, Schoology message, a note home. One question per teacher, and the channel exists before anything goes wrong.
03
Mark the diagnostic windows
Fall i-Ready happens in the first weeks. Keep it low-drama at home, and ask for the family report when the window closes. That report plus the fall conference is your first real picture of the year.
04
Keep the everyday engine running
Twenty minutes of reading a day, any reading. Sleep, breakfast, on time. When teachers are asked what helps most, this is the answer, because it's what makes everything else work.
Now · The District View
Resource Presenter: April Imperio
You've had the parent view all evening. We are grateful to welcome a member of the BPS senior leadership team for the district view.
Resource Presenter
AI
Birmingham Public Schools
Guest Speaker
April Imperio
Assistant Superintendent of Student Learning & Inclusion
Birmingham Public Schools
Curriculum, instruction, assessment, and inclusive practices across all thirteen BPS schools sit within April's role. That makes her the right person to walk families through how the district thinks about what students learn, how they learn it, and how progress is measured.
What April Will Cover
How curriculum is vetted, introduced, and implemented across all thirteen buildings, and how families can be partners in the work.
Parents Allied for Accountability, Conduct, and Transparency
Thank You
Three windows: the classroom, the data, the channel. The full fact sheets behind tonight live on the PAACT site. Take them to curriculum night.
paact-birmingham.com · paact.birmingham@gmail.com
Informed by data · Driven by trust · Built for students

Back to School Guides - August 18th PAACT Meeting

Plain-language guides to what your child is actually doing in class. We built these because most of us have never seen the curriculum our kids use every day, and the publisher websites are written for teachers, not families. Each one covers what the program is, what a lesson looks like, what your child is expected to do, and the questions that get useful answers at conferences.

These are written by parents, for parents. They are not publications of Birmingham Public Schools or any curriculum vendor, and classroom practice varies by building and teacher. Your child's teacher is always the best source on how any of this runs in their room.

Elementary, K through 5

Illustrative Math, Elementary. The K-5 math curriculum, and why your child says the teacher doesn't teach.

Arts & Letters, Elementary. The K-5 reading and writing curriculum, including how phonics fits alongside it in K-2.

Ready to Learn, Elementary. The skills teachers say matter most, and what they look like in a real classroom.

Middle School, grades 6 through 8

Illustrative Math, Middle School. The 6-8 math curriculum and the road toward algebra.

Arts & Letters, Middle School. The 6-8 English curriculum, built around whole books and daily writing.

Ready to Learn, Middle School. Organization, focus, and self-advocacy across seven teachers.

Every grade

M-STEP & i-Ready. The two tests your child takes, what each one is for, and which report to ask for.

BPS Quick Reference. Where to find everything in the district, and how to be an engaged parent.

Questions or something we got wrong? Email paact.birmingham@gmail.com.