The purpose of the Rockdale County Public Schools (RCPS) Department of Curriculum & Instruction is to ensure that RCPS schools effectively align and deliver curriculum, instruction, and assessment to ensure that students not only learn the required knowledge and skills to succeed in the academic program, but they are also well prepared for local, state, and national measures of achievement.
At each grade level and depending upon the subject, RCPS curriculum is defined by the Common Core Georgia Performance Standards (CCGPS) or the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS).
Common Core Georgia Performance Standards (CCGPS)
- set of core standards for K-12 language arts, K-9 mathematics, and grades 6-12
literacy in science, history/social studies, and technical subjects
- provide clear, consistent expectations for what students should be learning at each grade in order to be prepared for college and/or the 21st century workplace
- created by teachers, parents, education experts, and others from across the country
- formally adopted by Georgia (2010) and 44 other states
Georgia Performance Standards (GPS)
- provide clear expectations for instruction, assessment, and student work in all other program content areas not named above
- define the level of work that demonstrates achievement of the standards, enabling a teacher to know “how good is good enough”
- isolate and identify the skills needed to use the knowledge and skills to problem-solve, reason, communicate, and make connections with other information
Within those state-mandated learning expectations, our teachers must have a clear understanding of what to teach, how to teach it, when to teach it, and how to determine if students have learned the material. We rely on a process known as the Cycle for Results
to ensure that our students master the required standards.