Washington Central Supervisory Union curriculum and assessment development is an on-going process.  Many factors contribute to the need for curriculum to be seen as an on-going development and not a finished product.  These include constant changes in state and federal guidelines.  The Vermont Standards and Grade Level Expectations as well as the tests used to assess student learning have changed over time and will likely continue to evolve.  In addition, the world and our knowledge in every academic discipline are changing rapidly.  Our curriculum needs to prepare students for the challenges of a changing world and provide content that reflects new knowledge.  We also want our programs to be responsive to new understandings of how students learn.  When we adopt commercial programs, we look for programs that are supported by high quality research both in terms of their development and effectiveness.  Finally we support the concept of local and place-based education as a component of our curriculum.  This means that we except each of our schools to have some unique experiences woven in with the common experiences.  These local or place based experiences may be integrated units that are interdisciplinary and help students achieve the Standards in alternative ways.  Each of our elementary schools has local curriculum documents for parents.  These documents reflect the blend of WCSU and local curriculum for that school.