The Sonoma County Office of Education (SCOE) was recently designated one of six California county offices of education that will share a $20 million, four-year grant to support statewide professional learning related to California’s new math framework for educators.

The framework, finalized in 2023, places greater emphasis on teaching big concepts and ideas while focusing less on memorization. The framework is not a revision of standards or expectations of students, but rather a shift in how math is taught.

“I am eager to help our districts and schools with the very heavy lift of overhauling how we present math to students,” said Rick Barlow, mathematics program coordinator at SCOE. “This is the first major update to how math is taught in a decade — and it will better prepare students to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing job landscape.”

As a statewide math lead, SCOE will lead professional development around the framework in a region that includes the state’s North Coast. The five other counties designated as co-leads with SCOE are Kern, Merced, Santa Clara, San Diego, and Los Angeles counties.

SCOE will collaborate with the co-leading counties as well as five other county offices on the development of in-person, virtual, and hybrid professional development modules, with a goal of distilling the 1,000-page math framework and making it accessible to a wide audience of educators.