“Teachers deserve better communication and support.”
A current Lee County teacher · submitted anonymously through the form on this page, August 2026
I would like to raise a serious concern regarding the recent changes to the middle school Language Arts curriculum and the decisions surrounding the adoption and implementation of the new program.
Toward the end of last school year, our district adopted an entirely new Language Arts curriculum and textbook. Many teachers spent a significant portion of their summer learning the new curriculum, reading through the materials, and trying to prepare ourselves to properly teach it. We did this because we genuinely wanted to be prepared and provide our students with the best instruction possible.
Unfortunately, the training and support provided by the district were extremely limited. We attended two short district trainings, approximately 2 hours each, where teachers were expecting meaningful guidance and information about implementing this major curriculum change. Instead, there seemed to be very little useful information provided, leaving teachers to essentially figure out the curriculum on their own.
Then, during preplanning week, there were two virtual trainings scheduled regarding the new program—one covering the new curriculum and scope and sequence, and another explaining how to navigate the platform and textbook. The frustrating part? Both trainings were scheduled at the exact same time. How were teachers expected to attend and learn from both?
We were also told to begin using the new textbook, despite the physical student workbooks that teachers were promised not being available. This is especially frustrating because many teachers specifically supported the adoption of this program because we were excited about getting students writing and working with physical materials again rather than having them spend even more time on Chromebooks.
After all of this time, effort, and preparation, teachers were then informed by their principals that we are going back to the previous curriculum and textbook due to everything happening within the district.
This raises some very serious questions.
How much money did the district spend on the new curriculum, textbooks, licenses, materials, and training? How much of that money has now essentially been wasted if the program is no longer going to be used? Was another program purchased because of a failure in planning, communication, or implementation? And most importantly, who is accountable for these decisions?
It is incredibly frustrating to watch teachers be asked to do more with less, schools receive increasingly limited budgets, and hundreds of educators lose their jobs, while potentially significant amounts of taxpayer and district money may have been spent on curriculum that was barely implemented.
Teachers deserve better communication and support. Our students deserve consistency. And our community deserves transparency regarding how district funds are being spent.
This situation deserves to be looked into—not to blame individual teachers or administrators, but to understand what happened, how much was spent, why these decisions were made, and how the district plans to prevent this from happening again.
At the very least, our teachers and community deserve answers!
This is a personal account. The views are the storyteller’s own.