Curriculum Areas

DCSD provides a comprehensive assessment system designed to support student learning.

What Are Comprehensive Assessments?

Comprehensive assessments are systematic evaluations that measure students' knowledge, skills, and competencies across various subjects and grade levels. These assessments help us understand each student's academic progress, identify strengths and areas for improvement, and guide instructional decisions.

Types of Assessments

Formative Assessments: Ongoing assessments that provide immediate feedback to both students and teachers, helping to guide daily instruction.

Summative Assessments: Comprehensive evaluations conducted at the end of a learning unit or academic year, assessing overall mastery of content.

Standardized Assessments: State-mandated tests that measure student performance against established benchmarks.

Staff Contact | Diane Campbell

High school students have opportunities to earn college credit and prepare for higher education while at Davenport Community Schools. Advanced Placement (AP) courses offer college-level curriculum and corresponding exams, potentially granting college credit based on exam performance. Eastern Iowa Community College provides concurrent enrollment programs, allowing students to take college courses and earn both high school and college credit simultaneously. These options are available to accelerate academic progress, reduce college costs, and enhance college applications for all students in the Davenport Schools. See the Course Guide for available classes and descriptions! 

Course Guide 
 

Staff Contact | Melissa Trimble

The Creative Arts Academy of the Quad Cities is a regionally unique program that infuses students' individual learning with creativity and innovation applied through a career-oriented arts foundation that prepares students for a global marketplace. CAA provides project based learning, infused with 21st century skills and art integration in music, visual art, media arts, theatre, and dance enrichments for students to explore their artistic passion as it connects to other arts and the world around them. 

Staff Contact | Rudi Newkirk

Career and Technical Education (CTE) in Davenport Community School District offers middle and high school students hands-on training and academic knowledge in various fields such as healthcare, information technology, culinary, education, and the trades. These programs combine classroom instruction with practical experience, including industry recognized credentials, and work-based learning opportunities such as internships or apprenticeships. CTE prepares students for immediate entry into the workforce or further education, equipping them with their competitive advantage with skills in high-demand career paths.

Literacy enables students to unlock their potential and contribute meaningfully to their community. It develops across a lifetime, and the instruction students receive from preschool through grade twelve forms the foundation for future success.

Our Language Arts curriculum includes reading, writing, speaking, listening, spelling, handwriting, and vocabulary. Instruction is designed to help students become confident, effective communicators who can think critically, express ideas clearly, and engage with the world around them.

Students encounter a wide range of high-quality texts—including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and digital media—to build comprehension, strengthen vocabulary, and analyze ideas. Writing instruction supports clear and organized expression across purposes such as argument, narrative, and informative writing.

Speaking and listening are integrated throughout the curriculum to support collaboration, discussion, and presentation skills. All instruction is aligned to the Iowa Core Standards and supported by research-based materials to ensure rigorous, grade-level expectations.

At the high school level, standards become increasingly complex within each discipline. Students deepen content knowledge through a range of English Language Arts courses, including the Capstone Experience: Senior Exhibition. This culminating course develops communication, collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving, project management, creativity, and self-direction—empowering students to navigate challenges and pursue their goals.

Curricular Resources 

Preschool

Elementary Literacy - Amplify CKLA

Middle school- HMH Into Literature  

Iowa PK Early Learning Standards

Iowa K-12 ELA Standards

Staff Contact | Jennifer Saxon (PK-5) and Kimberly Woods (6-12)

Davenport Community School District believes that The Arts art an essential part of a well rounded education to support the whole student. Therefore, we provide comprehensive music and visual art programs for all students. 

Our students excel in the arts with regional, state, and national recognition throughout the district programs. Students’ artistic achievements are celebrated annually through multiple art shows, district wide events and concerts, and showcases. 

We work diligently to expose our students to as many opportunities in the fine arts as possible. Student’s don’t have to choose! Students can be in multiple fine arts areas, higher level academic, and athletics at the same time!

Fine Arts Standards 

Staff Contact | Rudi Newkirk

Welcome to our district’s Math Curriculum page! Our program is designed to foster mathematical literacy, empowering students to become independent thinkers and creative problem solvers. Through engaging instruction, students will develop the skills, strategies, and confidence needed to tackle complex problems both in and out of the classroom.

Our curriculum emphasizes real-world applications, encouraging students to apply their mathematical knowledge to address societal issues responsibly. By nurturing a love for mathematics and critical thinking, we aim to prepare our students for future challenges, ensuring they are equipped to make informed decisions in an increasingly complex world.

Staff Contact | Kim Awalt

Social studies is the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence. 

Within our programs, social studies provides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology. The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.

Each grade level within the K-8 standards includes components of all disciplines to provide a holistic foundation of social studies. In high school, these content standards are pulled out by the discipline for each course, allowing a deeper dive. All grade level content standards are taught in conjunction with the social studies inquiry standards.

Curricular Resources

Elementary School

Middle School

High School

Iowa K-12 Social Studies Standards

Staff Contact | Melissa Trimble

To ensure our students are scientifically-literate, global citizens, Iowa Core Science Standards give all students the real-world knowledge and skills needed to be ready for success after high school, regardless of the career paths they choose. These real-world connections involve students engaging with scientific phenomena and designing solutions to problems. DCSD science courses focus on deeper understanding of the natural world, building from kindergarten through grade twelve. 

DCSD science courses showcase how science is not just a body of knowledge that reflects current understanding of the world, but also a set of practices used to establish, extend, and refine that knowledge. They include three distinct dimensions to learning science – science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. This is often referred to as three-dimensional (or 3D) learning.  

Iowa K-12 Science Standards

Staff Contact | Melissa Trimble

Curricular Resources

Elementary School

Middle School

High School

Staff Contact | Lisa Baxter

Our DCSD Talented and Gifted education program provides challenge, enrichment, and/or acceleration to meet the gifted students' academic and social/emotional needs.

Staff Contact | Bonnie Asay

The Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) System rewards effective teachers with leadership opportunities and higher pay, attracts promising new teachers with competitive starting salaries and more support, and fosters greater collaboration for all teachers to learn from each other.

The overriding philosophy of the system is improving student learning requires improving the instruction they receive each day. There is no better way to do this than to empower our best teachers to lead the effort.

Staff Contact | Diane Campbell

Physical education (PE) in Davenport Schools is a critical component of students' overall education, promoting physical fitness, motor skills, and healthy habits. From elementary through high school, PE classes focus on activities like sports, exercises, and games as well as skill building activities such as fine motor dexterity and gross motor skills. Our programs aim to enhance students' physical health, teamwork, and discipline. Additionally, PE helps combat childhood obesity, improves mental health, and fosters a lifelong appreciation for an active lifestyle.

Health education in Davenport Schools is vital for promoting students' physical, mental, and social well-being.  Covering topics like nutrition, personal hygiene, substance abuse prevention, mental health, and sexual education. 

The curriculum from elementary through high school, health education aims to equip students with knowledge and skills to make informed health decisions, adopt healthy behaviors, and understand the importance of wellness.

Davenport Schools provides World Language Instruction in both Spanish and French. This instruction includes listening comprehension, speaking proficiency, reading comprehension, and writing proficiency all appropriate to the level of instruction in addition to cultural awareness. For each language, DCSD offers 4+ years of courses for students to take. Students are encouraged to work towards earning the Iowa and Global Seals of Biliteracy, which are awards given to recognize students who have attained proficiency in two or more languages, one of which is English, by the time they graduate.

Curricular Resources

Spanish

French

Iowa K-12 Social Studies Standards

Staff Contact | Melissa Trimble