Monterey Peninsula USD + UnboundEd: The Promise of Grade-Level Learning for Every Single Student
“GLEAM became more than just an initiative; it became a structure and a lens through which we thought...
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Distinction recognizes more than six years of partnership advancing High-Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful — GLEAM — instruction.
MONTEREY, Calif. — MONTEREY, Calif. — UnboundEd today named Monterey Peninsula Unified School District (MPUSD) a recipient of its 2026 GLEAM Instruction Showcase Award, recognizing the district’s sustained, system-wide commitment to HQIM and grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful (GLEAM) instruction. The honor celebrates more than six years of partnership between MPUSD and UnboundEd to strengthen instructional coherence and excellence for every single student.
From the start, MPUSD treated the work as a system-wide leadership investment rather than a short-term program, embedding GLEAM into walkthrough tools, math integrity walks, professional learning communities, and coaching. Leaders shifted from compliance-oriented walkthroughs to standards-focused observation, and educators increasingly reject remediation-first thinking in favor of a shared belief that all students can engage in grade-level work with the right scaffolds.
“GLEAM became more than just an initiative; it became a structure and a lens through which we thought about the work, both from a leadership perspective and in how our teachers were able to provide content for our students. Students can absolutely access grade-level experiences, and our educators are seeing that when we build scaffolds instead of watering down the content, students thrive,” said Cresta McIntosh, Associate Superintendent of Educational Services at MPUSD.
The results are visible in classrooms. MPUSD now uses high-quality instructional materials consistently across elementary and middle school mathematics, with expansion underway in high schools, and is seeing strong coherence in structured literacy from preschool through third grade. Nationally published analysis through the Education Recovery Scorecard highlighted the district’s stability in math performance during and following the pandemic.
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