ConVal Regional School District will return $1 million in taxpayer dollars that will offset tax bills this year, according to its school board.

“I’m happy to say that we are returning more than we thought we were going to,” Marian Alese, business administrator for Conval, said during the school board meeting Tuesday. “I notified the towns that we expect a new payment schedule to be in place and to make any changes they need to make.”

In March 2016, the district expected to return $575,000 of unused funds to taxpayers.

Additional revenue came as a result of an anticipated healthcare coverage increase, which projected a 6 percent spike in overall costs to the district over the previous year. Actual costs came in $600,000 below estimates.

“I want to make sure that people understand this is hard work and it took the school board, the staff, the administration and the teachers, rowing in the same direction to get here,” Superintendent Kimberly Saunders said during the meeting.

The school district plans to make another change in health carriers next year, after it found another provider that offers similar wellness and benefits programs at a lower rate.

Health insurance is one of the highest and most unpredictable costs the district faces every year, Saunders said.

During the meeting, Ann Allwarden laid out a curriculum mapping plan aimed at minimizing the gap between what’s written for teachers at the beginning of the school year and what’s actually being taught in the classroom.

“Sometimes there’s a mismatch between what we thought would happen and what does happen,” Allwarden said about the old system.

In the past, a group of teachers created curriculum, which outlined essential concepts and skills the students were expected to learn throughout the year. Allwarden said those documents were distributed among teachers and, often, relegated to bookshelves.

Now, the school is looking to collect data on what is taught in classrooms by asking teachers to record learning progress on a day-to-day basis.

These “maps,” Saunders says, will provide an opportunity to analyze curriculum within and across grade levels.

Curriculum maps for more than 50 classes will be made available online this fall.

Allwarden said by the end of the school year it will become more clear where the gaps are so that teachers can make the “appropriate adjustments.”

Abby Kessler can be reached at 924-7172, ext. 234 or akessler@ledgertranscript.com.