California Spotlight

Welcome to the California Spotlight! On this Web page, the CDE is sharing Web sites, curriculum, lessons, units, communications, and other online resources developed by California schools, districts, and county offices of education to support the use of the Common Core State Standards.

California Spotlight is a feature of the CDE CCSS Update listserv. If you would like to recommend a Web site or online resource to be featured, please contact the CDE Common Core Team at commoncoreteam@cde.ca.gov.

County Office of Education Web Sites

Tulare County Office of Education

The Tulare County Office of Education (TCOE) Web site, Common Core Connect , capitalizes on the successes, resources, and shared learning of the CCSS. The Web site offers an ever-expanding collection and wide array of media in the form of videos, presentations, documents, and helpful websites. The resources developed or identified by TCOE are searchable through a variety of filters including grade level, keyword, type of media, and specific standard. Visitors to the site are encouraged to contribute to the collection.

Stanislaus County Office of Education

Hard-working educators across the nation have produced many resources to transition and implement the CCSS.  Stanislaus County Office of Education (SCOE) highlights many of those essential resources for K–12 educators, parents, and students.  Please visit SCOE Common Core Standards Web page to view up-to-date resources.

Contra Costa County Office of Education

The Contra Costa County Office of Education (CCCOE) Common Core Web site. contains resource materials, presentations, and information gathered from ongoing professional development in Contra Costa and neighboring counties.  The site includes handouts and presentations from the recent San Francisco Bay Area Common Core Summit hosted by CCCOE, as well as links to valuable resources provided by other agencies.

District Web Sites

Santa Ana Unified School District

Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) is dedicated to providing a world-class education to all students. With 82 percent English Learners or redesignated English Learners, SAUSD has identified key components to explicitly and purposefully address the needs of all English Learners in a coherent and consistent manner. The SAUSD Web site emphasizes this key focus; highlighting the establishment of a theory of action, development of a theoretical framework, and intentional professional development.  

SAUSD believes that effective and consistent communication is essential for successful implementation of the Common Core. The Web site highlights multiple avenues to communicate with teachers, staff, and community members. Avenues of communication include the Common Core Newsletter and Frequently Asked Questions published bi-weekly, Common Core blog, and access to videos and presentations highlighting on-going implementation plans.

Santa Ana invites districts in California and throughout the nation to access their Common Core State Standards Web site. SAUSD’s goal is to assist other districts in accelerating the implementation of the Common Core and form lasting, collaborative partnerships.

Elk Grove Unified School District

The Elk Grove Unified School District (EGUSD) has produced resources to assist their teachers and instructional leaders with the implementation of the CCSS for Mathematics and English Language Arts and Literacy in History-Social Studies, Science, and Technical subjects. Currently in their second of a three-year CCSS transition plan, EGUSD is poised to begin full implementation of CCSS in the 2013–14 school year.  Please visit the EGUSD CCSS Web page to access these resources.

Santee School District

Educators, students, and parents are presented with a myriad of options when searching the Web for information about CCSS. In order to ensure stakeholders have the best information, Santee School District created An Introduction to CCSS Web site. Please visit the Web site for resources to help the transition to CCSS.

Val Verde Unified School District

Thank you for your interest in Val Verde Unified School District’s Common Core Resources Web page. In VVUSD’s initial attempts to build a CCSS/SBAC resource library, we quickly found ourselves buried with options to the point we were drinking from a fire hose! Our website represents an effort to select the most pertinent resources from across California and the United States to support our transition to the Common Core.

San Francisco Unified School District's Math Department

SFUSDMath.org houses a diverse collection of news and resources for teachers, students, families, and the community as the district moves forward with implementation of the CCSS. The Web site is used as a central point for implementation of SFUSD’s new teacher-curated math core curriculum which holds rich math tasks at the center of the students’ experience. Important shifts in the district also include their new secondary course sequence , which was unanimously passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in February 2014. Follow SFUSD’s fun math problems, graphs, updates, cartoons, and photos on Twitter! @SFUSDMath

Hawthorne School District

The Hawthorne School District (HSD) has been compiling a broad collection of high-quality resources on its Common Core Web page to support teachers and parents during the transition to the new standards. Please visit the HSD Common Core State Standards Web page to check them out.

Teacher Web Sites

Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District/CTA Teacher Cohort Lesson Study

Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District and the California Teachers Association (CTA)’s Teacher Leadership Cohort provided time, opportunity, and resources for their eighth grade math teachers to work collaboratively in their first year of transition to CCSS through cross-school lesson studies. The teachers involved now describe this as the best professional development to support their transition - and the district plans to continue the work across grade levels. Read about their journey and find resources to start your own lesson study on the Common Core Cohort Web page.

Support Organizations

The Center on Standards & Assessment Implementation

The Center on Standards & Assessment Implementation (CSAI) is a federally-funded content center that supports states' efforts to improve state policies and practices for college- and career-ready standards and assessments. The CSAI Web site provides center-created resources on the implementation of new standards and assessments, as well as a searchable database of resources from other organizations that address standards and assessment. Please visit The Center on Standards & Assessment Implementation Web site for more information.

Silicon Valley Community Foundation: Embrace the Core Web Site and Communications Toolkit

As educators, we may be teaching students in classrooms, but we are also educating the larger community about how learning is changing in the 21st century. Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s Embrace the Core Web site and Communications Toolkit are designed to help educators cut through the noise and communicate with parents about California's Common Core State Standards. Teachers, principals, district leaders, after-school program administrators, and anyone else who regularly fields questions from parents can use the posters, sample letters to parents, talking points, and various other resources to drive those conversations.

For more information, please visit the Embrace the Core Web site . The toolkit is available on the Web site in the Common Core Communications Toolkit page .