Frequently Asked Questions

Curriculum Development Consulting

  • Curriculum development is the process of designing, building, and organizing the content and experiences students encounter in a course, program, or school. K.Fry Education Consulting includes full curriculum design and scope and sequence mapping, unit and lesson planning, alignment to state and national standards, differentiation strategies for diverse learners, and school-wide instructional frameworks. Whether you need a single unit built to fit an existing curriculum, a multi-year program designed from the ground up, or something in between, Karen brings the same rigor and intentionality to every project.

  • K. Fry Education Consulting works with K-12 public and private schools, charter schools, homeschool families, museums, cultural institutions, and individual families seeking customized learning experiences.  Projects have ranged from school-wide literacy frameworks and a nine-year scope and sequence, an ethnic studies curriculum to meet state standards, education guides for the Fowler Museum at UCLA, and lesson plans for the California Migration Museum.  Karen is comfortable working at the classroom, school, or organizational level.

  • Karen’s expertise is in history, social studies, literacy, and ethnic studies, reflecting her 26 years as a classroom teacher. However, her skills in curriculum design, standards alignment, and differentiation are transferable across subject areas. Karen is happy to discuss your needs and ideas during a free consultation.

  • Every project begins with a discovery conversation to understand your goals, your students, your standards requirements, and any existing materials. From there K.Fry Education Consulting will develop a project plan with clear milestones and deliverables. Depending on scope, this may include drafting frameworks, building unit guides, writing lesson plans, and providing opportunities for your review and feedback throughout. Final deliverables are practical, classroom-ready materials, not theoretical documents that sit on a shelf.

  • Yes. K.Fry Education Consulting has extensive experience aligning curriculum to California's History-Social Science Framework, Common Core State Standards for literacy, and ethnic studies guidelines. Karen is familiar with national frameworks and can work with standards from other states. Depending on your requirements, K.Fry Education Consulting will create your materials accordingly.

  • Differentiation is built into the curriculum design from the beginning, not added as an afterthought. Materials are designed that provide multiple entry points, scaffolded supports for struggling learners, and extension opportunities for advanced students.

  • Yes. K.Fry Education Consulting is particularly passionate about the adoption of ethnic studies as a California State Requirement, having developed ethnic studies curriculum for schools and created education guides for cultural institutions including the Fowler Museum at UCLA and the California Migration Museum. Karen approaches this work with both scholarly rigor and deep sensitivity to the communities being represented.

  • Yes. K.Fry Education Consulting has developed educator resources, lesson plans, and student-facing materials for museum and cultural institution partners, including the Fowler Museum at UCLA and the California Migration Museum. Karen understands how to bridge the gap between an institution's collection or mission and the realities of K-12 classroom practice, creating materials that teachers will use and students will find meaningful.

  • K.Fry Education Consulting develops teacher guides, student activity packets, primary source analysis frameworks, discussion protocols, field trip preparation and follow-up materials, and standards-aligned lesson plans, working from an institution's existing collection and interpretive content, or helping develop new educational narratives from the ground up.

  • Absolutely. K.Fry Education Consulting works with homeschool families who want a coherent, academically rigorous curriculum tailored to their child's interests, learning style, and goals. This might mean designing a year-long course of study, developing unit plans around a particular theme or time period, or helping a family align their existing materials to standards for transcript or portfolio purposes.

  • Curriculum consulting typically begins with an audit or review of your existing materials, programs, and outcomes. K.Fry Education Consulting then provides a clear-eyed assessment of strengths and gaps, followed by prioritized, actionable recommendations. Depending on your needs, this may also include working directly with teachers through instructional coaching, facilitating professional development, or supporting the implementation of new curriculum.

  • Yes. This is one of K.Fry Education Consulting signature areas of expertise, having built multi-year scope and sequence frameworks that ensure vertical alignment across grade levels, eliminate redundancy, and create coherent learning progressions. Whether you are starting from scratch or revising an existing framework, Karen can guide the process from initial mapping through final documentation.

  • Yes. K.Fry Education Consulting offers instructional coaching for classroom teachers who want support refining their practice, implementing new curriculum, or developing stronger lesson planning skills. Coaching can be a standalone engagement or embedded within a broader curriculum development or school consulting project.

  • Yes.  K.Fry Education Consulting has developed school-wide literacy frameworks and has experience helping schools align their approach to reading and writing instruction across content areas. Whether you are adopting a new literacy program, developing common writing expectations, or trying to improve literacy outcomes for specific student populations, Karen can provide both strategic guidance and practical tools.

  • Families typically come to K.Fry Education Consulting when they want an experienced outside perspective on their child's academic program. This might include evaluating whether your child's current school or courses are the right fit, developing a plan for a student who is significantly ahead of or behind grade level, navigating a learning difference, or thinking strategically about the path from middle school through high school and into college.

  • Yes. K.Fry Education Consulting can review your child's academic history, current placement, and goals, and offer honest, informed guidance on whether their current environment is serving them well, and what alternatives might look like if it is not.

  • Yes, always. The initial consultation is a conversation, no commitment required. It gives us a chance to understand your needs, share the K.Fry Education Consulting approach, and determine together whether working with together is the right fit for your situation and student.

Logistics and Rates

  • Pricing varies by the scope, complexity, and duration of the project. Unlike coaching and tutoring, which are billed at a standard hourly rate, curriculum development and consulting engagements are quoted on a project basis after an initial consultation. K.Fry Education Consulting is committed to transparency around pricing and will provide a clear proposal before any work begins.

  • This varies enormously depending on scope. A single unit plan might be completed in one to two weeks, while a school-wide scope and sequence or multi-course curriculum build could span a full semester or longer. K.Fry Education Consulting will provide a realistic timeline as part of every project proposal.

  • All deliverables are practical, organized, and ready to use. Depending on the project, this may include unit guides, lesson plans, assessment tools, standards alignment documents, teacher guides, or student-facing materials. K.Fry Education Consulting delivers clean, professional documents in formats that work for your team, and is available for questions after delivery to support successful implementation.

  • Karen is not a consultant who has only ever observed classrooms, she has spent 26 years teaching in them. She knows what actually works with real students and knows how to build materials that teachers will find useful and students will find engaging. Karen’s work spans the full range from personalized family projects to institutional partnerships with museums and schools, and she bring the same depth of care and expertise to every engagement, regardless of size or scope.