BURLINGTON WEATHER

How Burlington Works

Burlington Public Schools is working to update what is taught in the area of health and physical education, and this week the School Committee is expected to discuss and vote on a new set of standards that would be used to build new curriculum as soon as this summer.

Some key concepts in this story:

  • Standards: A list of things students should know and be able to do by the end of a grade level or grade span in a particular content area.
  • Framework: A collection of standards in a given discipline, organized in domains of related standards known as topics.
  • Topic: A particular domain of study designated within a framework; these are typically vertically aligned so the topics are consistent throughout grade levels as the standards within each topic get progressively more complex.
  • Power Standards: The key standards considered to be foundational within a topic.
  • Supporting Standards: Standards that support the understanding and mastery of key standards.
  • Additional Standards: Standards that don't fall into the Power or Supporting standards category.
  • Curriculum: The specific plan for teaching the standards contained in a given framework.

The School Department, under the leadership of Assistant Superintendent Dr. Lisa Chen, has been working to update its approach to instruction in a number of content areas over the last three years.

"I had first started out with math," said Chen, "but then [Superintendent Dr. Conti] had said, 'You know, it's really important to for us to look at reading."

After two years with the district, Chen and district educators had identified and adopted a new K-5 literacy curriculum, and a year later – just this past April – a first-ever comprehensive literacy curriculum was adopted for the middle school. The pathways for mathematics instruction are also being updated, to help students take advantage of more advanced math classes and flexible entry and exit points. No specific curriculum or textbook has been chosen yet in the area of mathematics, but this has been discussed at School Committee meetings throughout the last several years.

Now, says Chen, it's time to look at the way health and physical education are taught throughout BPS. "It really just was time to look at some of the other standards and curriculums, because we want our kids to have the most recent standards," said Chen. "And this was an important curriculum to look at because physical education and health, they're great entry points for our portrait of a graduate and when it comes to social emotional learning. Since we value learning, equity, and thriving [the district's key values], and we also value the physical and emotional health of all students, PE and Health are important for us to look at."

Chen says the district's curriculum has been using the state's recommended standards from 1999 and has not yet adopted the framework released by the Department of Elementary and Secondary education in 2023. "I wish I could have gotten to them sooner," she said, "but I had my hands full with the math and English.

A Diverse Committee

As with the other content areas, Chen worked with a committee of educators to collaborate on this endeavor. For the PE and wellness work, however, the committee, which met monthly throughout the 2025-26 school year, also involved parents, students, Board of Health members, and medical professionals. Chen said that along with a district wellness committee being a state requirement, she and Dr. Conti believed it was important to have a transparent process with a diversity of stakeholders involved as they went through and decided which of the standards recommended by the state to move forward to the School Committee for adoption.

"The state has said that when it comes to the sexual health standards, there is a process that should involve all stakeholders," said Chen. "And I think we did a good job of getting representation, including students."

When a curriculum is eventually created, parents will have the ability to opt students out of lessons involving sexual health.

A Process Of Multiple Passes

While the math and literacy work involved selecting instructional materials and curricula for frameworks that had already been adopted by the district, the PE and wellness review started with a deep look at the standards by health and PE teachers under the guidance of Director of Health and Physical Education Amy Doughty.

"She brought together all of her department members from elementary, middle, and high school, and they looked at the vertical standards," said Chen, praising the hard work of the department in the prioritization process. From more than 450 standards, the educators selected power standards (see definition above) within each grade span preK-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12, along with supporting standards that would support students in mastering those power standards. This whittled the list to just under 300, a latitude given to districts in the state framework itself.

Topics include:

  • Healthy Relationships [HR]
  • Mental and Emotional Health [MH]
  • Nutrition and Balanced Eating [NE]
  • Personal Safety [PS]
  • Physical Activity and Fitness [PF]
  • Physical Health and Hygiene [PH]
  • Public, Community, and Environmental Health [CE]
  • Sexual Health [SH]
  • Substance Use and Misuse [SU]

These standards were then brought to the Wellness Committee, which walked through each recommended 2023 standard and its 1999 counterpart and decided whether or not to recommend it for the district's framework. The process involved small- and whole-group discussion and, at times, requests for further information. Sometimes the committee wanted to know what a standard would look like in practice, said Chen, and sometimes the committee wanted more data.

"For instance, if you take STIs [sexually transmitted infections], which were originally taught in 10th grade and you want to move it down to 8th grade... some of the members said, 'Can you give us some examples of how this is going to look in the one of your classes?'" Chen said conversations about sexual health often centered around age-appropriateness and whether or not certain topics make sense in Burlington's context to be taught at certain grade levels. "If we're moving something that we're teaching in 10th grade to 8th grade, are we having more of a problem in middle schools? That's a place I'm going to have to seek more information."

The standards recommended by the Wellness Committee cover a number of topics at each grade span. Grades preK through 5 focus strongly on mental and physical health, physical activity & fitness, and healthy relationships, a decision Chen and Doughty say was intentional. They explained that there is no dedicated health class in elementary school, and health education will be incorporated into PE classes at those grade levels.

A handful of topics in the kindergarten through fifth grade framework did not make the cut at all, including those around nutrition, personal safety, and environmental & community health at preK-2 and physical health & hygiene, personal safety, and gender, sexual orientation, and sexual health in 3-5. It's also possible that some of the excluded topics are covered in other elementary classes such as science and social studies, though Burlington Buzz does not have confirmation of that as of the time of publication.

In middle school, the scope expands quite a bit, as there are dedicated health classes at this level. Physical activity & fitness, mental health, and healthy relationships remain strong areas of focus, and substance use and misuse, while mentioned in grades 3-5 and omitted at grades preK-2, take a stronger role.

At the high school level, the focus on physical fitness and personal safety, including substance use and misuse, remains strong, while public, community and environmental health enters the conversation in a more prominent way.

Out of all the standards discussed by the Wellness Committee, the 8th grade sexual health standards were among the only ones not agreed upon unanimously for recommendation; one was removed from the recommended power standards, and the other two will be held for more discussion next year.

Another subset of standards proposed by the health and PE department didn't yet get the committee treatment at all: The sexual health standards were presented this April to the Board of Health. "As a Wellness Committee we talked about seeking the medical expertise from the Board of Health as a first step because they are our medical experts in our community," said Chen. "We would bring their feedback back to the Wellness Committee." However, said Chen, the Board of Health chose not to weigh in, saying the education standards are not in their purview. These, like the 8th grade sexual health standards, will be discussed next year.

Standards on the table for discussion next year include those about STI and pregnancy prevention at the middle school level, information literacy regarding sexual health, gender identity, and sexual orientation, identifying abusive relationships, and decision making regarding sexual behavior. Many of these standards were identified by health and PE department educators as being power standards.

A few standards didn't make it into the conversation at all, including advocacy and tolerance around gender identity and sexual orientation at the elementary level and STI prevention at the high school level.

Presenting The Framework to the School Committee

With the school year winding down, Chen said the committee made the decision to bring forward the standards that have passed through the Wellness Committee – all of which enjoyed unanimous approval by Wellness Committee members – for a vote by the School Committee. While this list does not yet include the power and supporting standards in the areas of sexual health and healthy relationships that were presented to the Board of Health and will be discussed by the Wellness Committee during the 2026-27 school year, the framework presented is an attempt to give health and PE educators the opportunity to begin building curriculum, said Chen.

"Are we going to hold up these other standards that need to move forward because we are having so many discussions and continue on 1999 standards? That's not fair for kids," Chen said.

Still, at least one Wellness Committee member says it would be better to wait until the entire complement of recommended standards is reviewed. "I'd argue not including gender identity means you're not modernizing your standards," said the committee member, who wished to not be identified, adding that it's unwise to begin building a curriculum without having the full picture. "If we have tolerance in the curriculum but kids don't have names for the different kinds of people they're supposed to be tolerant of, how are they supposed to talk about it?"

Chen emphasized that curriculum development is an iterative process that is never fully complete. "The curriculum is being continuously looked at ... If you look at curriculum only in a vacuum, then you're never going to get better."

Chen said she plans to explain more about the process at the School Committee's next meeting, which will be Tuesday, June 9 at 7:00 PM. The School Committee conducted its first reading of the proposed standards at their May 26 meeting and is expected to revisit and vote on the list at a second reading at the June 9 meeting.

If the School Committee votes to advance the framework, said Chen, the health and PE department will begin building a curriculum using the approved standards, and the Wellness Committee will continue their discussions into the next school year about the standards that didn't make it to their table this year. "If [the School Committee] want to wait until this is all complete," said Chen, "that's fine, but we may need to wait a little bit longer until we can roll out everything."

Editor's Note (06/08/2026, 12:53 PM): Minutes from the Wellness Committee meetings, including discussion notes and the list of standards reviewed, can be found on the town website by following this link. To view minutes for a meeting, click the meeting, click "Download agenda" at the top right, then click the icon under "Minutes" on the next page.

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