Some residents have raised concerns about a new English Language Arts curriculum that the Peninsula School District will test in elementary schools this fall.
Out of the 14 members of the public who participated in public comment at the Peninsula School District Board of Directors meeting at Swift Water Elementary School on June 18, seven of them urged the board not to use the Wit & Wisdom curriculum in classrooms. One person spoke in support of it.
Some opposed to the curriculum questioned its effectiveness as a teaching tool, and some flagged the content of the texts used to teach kids how to read as inappropriate to their age group. Nationally, the curriculum has become a topic of controversy as voices on both the right and left of the political spectrum have claimed Wit & Wisdom teaches students particular ideological positions with regard to race, gender and diversity.
Wit & Wisdom is a K-8 English Language Arts curriculum developed by the organization Great Minds and is one of two options the Peninsula School District is considering to adopt at the K-5 level for the 2025-2026 school year.
According to the Great Minds curriculum website, Wit & Wisdom features core texts that “are rich with content that piques curiosity, represent grade-level complexity, and showcase diverse perspectives.”
What does Wit & Wisdom teach?
Vanessa Burgess, a special education teacher in a nearby district, spoke at the meeting with concerns about the curriculum’s effectiveness. She said that Wit & Wisdom introduces difficult content too early and leaves students with learning disabilities behind.
Burgess teaches middle school in the South Kitsap School District but emphasized to The News Tribune that she was sharing her personal opinions and not speaking as a representative of her district.
Burgess said in a phone call with The News Tribune that Wit & Wisdom texts have caused some of her middle school students to run out of the classroom screaming because the content was triggering to them. Books such as “All Quiet on the Western Front” or “Fever 1793” include serious and difficult content about death and disease that she has to take time to explain to her students and help them process, she said.
Though Wit & Wisdom is a K-8 curriculum, the district is only piloting it at the K-5 level. The district is updating ELA curricula in elementary, middle and high school classrooms in separate processes and timelines. According to Peninsula School District director of Elementary Teaching & Learning Natalie Boyle, the district is not considering adopting Wit & Wisdom at the middle school level during this adoption cycle.
While she teaches middle school students, Burgess said in her public comment that she expects elementary school teachers will end up spending more time than they think on Wit & Wisdom content.
Besides South Kitsap, school districts in Spokane, Battle Ground, Longview, Port Angeles, Medical Lake, Ridgefield and Bainbridge Island have implemented Wit & Wisdom curriculum in Washington state, according to Nancy Zuckerbrod, a spokesperson for Great Minds.
Cristy Wahala is a member of the group Moms for P.E.A.C.E., which formed in June 2023 to advocate for BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and neurodivergent students in the district and support those targeted by bullying and harassment. Wahala spoke about the benefits of the Wit & Wisdom curriculum at the meeting.
Wahala said that the curriculum helps to create a diverse and inclusive learning environment needed to fight racism and harassment, which she suggested came from ignorance of diverse perspectives.
“I’ve heard a lot of examples of history that’s taught through this program tonight, and they’re all accurate depictions of what has happened in history,” Wahala said. “So I don’t think that that’s wrong to teach our students.”
The curriculum was criticized by multiple speakers during public comment who said it presents age-inappropriate content to young students.
Sarah Garriott has a child who is homeschooling part-time in the Peninsula School District and has another child who used to attend a Peninsula School District school. Garriott raised concerns about introducing serious topics from U.S. history so early in children’s education, such as in a kindergarten lesson that includes an explanation of the lack of opportunities that the Black entertainer known as Bojangles faced during the Harlem Renaissance because of the color of his skin.
“Here is the first time that race relations are introduced to 5 year olds, on day 25 of kindergarten, before they have learned their letter sounds, and they are also introduced to the Great Depression,” Garriott said.
Overview sheets of Wit & Wisdom Module 1 for kindergarten students, available on the Great Minds website for families, show that kindergarten classes read articles about the Great Depression and the Harlem Renaissance and watch a video called “Bojangles Step Dance” alongside other materials while they learn about the five senses.
The Great Minds website says that the “curriculum complies with the laws of every state in which we operate and does not teach critical race theory (CRT).” The website also says the company chooses books that “accurately describe events in American history and explore the American experience from different perspectives.”
Moms for Liberty
Garriott is the chair of the Pierce County chapter of Moms for Liberty. She said in a later phone call with The News Tribune that she came to the meeting as a private resident and not as a representative of Moms for Liberty.
Several others who spoke out against Wit & Wisdom at the meeting are also members of Moms for Liberty. Garriott said they did not come as one organized group.
Burgess, the South Kitsap teacher, said she was not affiliated with the group and does not share their views.
Moms for Liberty is a national organization with chapters across the country that describes itself as “dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.” The group has sought to influence school boards, including those in Pierce County, and its leaders have publicly opposed diversity, equity and inclusion and LGBTQ+ initiatives in public schools, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labels it an antigovernment organization.
Garriott told The News Tribune that the organization wants schools to be neutral on social topics and to focus on strong academics and learning. She denied that the group is anti-LGBTQ.
In Tennessee, the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty criticized Wit & Wisdom in a letter to the state Commissioner of Education in 2021, stating concerns that the curriculum’s lessons about racial injustice in U.S. history violate a Tennessee state law prohibiting the use of teaching materials that portray one race or sex as superior to another, the state or country as fundamentally racist or sexist, and other related ideas.
Another advocacy group, Parents’ Choice Tennessee, sued the Williamson County Board of Education and other officials in 2022 over claims that Wit & Wisdom teaches Critical Race Theory in violation of state law. The Tennessee Court of Appeals partially reversed a lower court ruling against the group in April and the case is ongoing.
Why is the Peninsula School District changing its curriculum?
Peninsula School District Director of Elementary Teaching & Learning Natalie Boyle said the district reviews its curricula every seven to 10 years to ensure the material students use to learn is research-based and up-to-date. In a recent review, the district found that their elementary ELA curriculum established in 2015, “Reading Wonders,” did not meet district standards.
Wit & Wisdom, paired with another curriculum called Really Great Reading, and Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) were the finalists from a screening process that began earlier this year. Expert reviewers chose them after reviewing various programs for their online accessibility, writing components, ease of use and other factors, according to a meeting summary from the initial review team.
The initial screening process involved using rubrics from educational experts such as The Reading League and the Institute of Education Sciences to score different options on how well a curriculum taught foundational reading skills like phonics and spelling. Those curricula that scored highly moved to a second phase of screening with rubrics that measured additional factors like a curriculum’s emphasis on knowledge-building and the presence of bias in instructional materials, before moving to a committee of teachers and educational administrators to further narrow the list.
The full rubric reviewers used is available on the curriculum adoption website.
The next step is the classroom pilot. At least three teachers from each elementary school will pilot the selected curricula in their classrooms in the fall and winter of the 2023-24 school year. Boyle said that the number of teachers varies by school because the district aims to include an equal representation of grade levels and schools in the pilot. She said there will be 38 teachers total participating in the pilot. These teachers will inform students’ families that they are doing so.
The Wit & Wisdom and Really Great Reading pilot will run from early September to early November, according to the curriculum adoption website. The other finalist, Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) will run from mid-November to early February.
Boyle said assessments throughout the year will measure how students perform with the different materials. The district will also factor in parent input and feedback on usability from teachers and students to choose which curriculum to adopt in the 2025-26 school year.
The reason that Wit & Wisdom will be paired with Really Great Reading has to do with how children learn to read, according to Boyle. “Scarborough’s Reading Rope” is a visual representation of the theory that reading skills fall into two main camps: language comprehension and word recognition. Wit & Wisdom helps students with language comprehension, while Really Great Reading helps students with word recognition, so the district paired them together, as is publicly encouraged by Great Minds.
CKLA is comprehensive and covers both sets of skills, according to Boyle.
Wit & Wisdom has received high ratings from outside organizations including EdReports and the Knowledge Matters Campaign.
Boyle said the district does not yet have an estimate of how much implementing the new curriculum will cost.
Peninsula School District Chief Academic Officer John Yellowlees said in an interview with The News Tribune that the district appreciates parent and family input and that feedback from parents and students will help drive the district’s decision as they follow their established process. The curriculum adoption website indicates that input from students and families will be collected at multiple points.
“We’ve heard from some parents both at board meetings and through other correspondence that are in favor of certain curricula, just as we hear from those that are opposed to it or have concerns about it, so we take all of that into consideration,” Yellowlees said.
The Peninsula School Board will vote on the new curriculum in spring 2025 based on the results of the pilot.
