Mathematics will be taught differently at Newman-Crows Landing Unified School District’s sites in August.
On Monday, NCLUSD Board of Education voted unanimously for the adoption of two new math curriculums, Amplify Desmos Math and California Reveal Math, for kindergarten through sixth grade and ninth through 12th grade. The exception was seventh through eighth grade, whose curriculum adoption is currently in progress with a final recommendation coming in June.
Amplify Desmos Math, which will be incorporated for kindergarten through sixth-grade students, is a digital problem-based curriculum centered on problem-based lessons and personalized to meet the needs of students and teachers. According to the company’s website, lessons are designed to provide teachers with ideas and builds on students’ learning lessons.
Ninth through 12th-grade students will receive the California Reveal Math curriculum. The curriculum incorporates common core math content, personalized assessments and offers teachers mini-lessons.
Heather Vargas, the director of curriculum and learning, said the district has been evaluating the state’s Mathematics Framework and Mathematics Instructional Materials Adoption for the curriculum for K-12 within the past three years.
The framework, adopted in July 2023, centers on problem-solving, use of data and applying it to real-world situations such as decision making or identifying misleading data. Additionally, educators are encouraged to make mathematics “culturally relevant and empowering” to help students utilize the curriculum and see themselves in math-related career fields, per the framework documents.
The material adoption, adopted in November 2025, approved which program curriculum to use for certain grade levels.
A committee composed of two teachers from each grade level was formed to collaborate with one another and share their input on the curriculum, Vargas said. From December 2025 to March 2026, kindergarten to 12th-grade math classes were a part of a pilot process where the teachers used the instructional material for their specific curriculum.
Kindergarten through eighth grade classes use Amplify Desmos and ninth through 12th grade used both curriculums for a month. Behind Vargas was multiple large white posters that showed students’ feedback about a specific curriculum.
One poster shown was third through fifth-grade students’ input on Amplify Desmos. While students felt satisfied with the platform and its workbooks, they felt knowledge of materials beforehand was needed.
“One teacher told me, ‘I really like it, but the kids don’t,’ and I’m like, ‘That’s great feedback for me,’” Vargas said. “We wanted to hear those types of things, I wanted to hear how students felt. It was different because they had workbooks and textbooks.”
With Orestimba High testing both curriculums, students and teachers preferred California Reveal as the program tailored best to teacher’s teaching styles and offered beneficial videos on the lesson.
The district will pay $786,985.95 to purchase the digital licenses, kits and other materials for both curricula for five years.
Vargas said she and district staff will monitor students’ screen time in classrooms across grade level, referencing a decision recently imposed by the Los Angeles Unified School District.
On April 21, LAUSD Board of Education voted unanimously to create guidelines to limit screen time for students of all grades. This includes restricting students’ screen time and prohibiting the use of digital devices for early education through first-grade students.
“We also have our eyes on that to know that we want to make sure that if any of those things come our way, or as we want to limit it and we want students to have both [work and textbooks] and not just want to be on the computer all day,” Vargas said.
