FHSD Board of Education Work Session - April 3rd

001I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. more like a motion to approve the agenda for April 3rd, 2025 as presented. So second Cook. All those in favor say I. I. Post say no. Eyes have more like a motion to approve the personnel report as presented. So move second. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed say no. I seven or like a motion to approve the policy and regulation as presented. So move second any discussion board none. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed say no. I Dr. Rmpus. Thank you President Bertrand and thank you to the rest of the board for the opportunity

002to hold this special work session tonight. A tier one K5 literacy resource adoption is probably the biggest adoption that any district does. Um, and one might also argue the most important when we think about the impact on all of our students K5 and learning to read and the impact it has on all of the content areas and really the rest of their school experience. And so this is a huge undertaking and while Dr. Buckman will introduce the team that did the work and thank them, I just wanted to open um by thanking them. an incredibly dedicated um smart group of people who know this work and spent a lot of time working on it. Um and we're excited to share it with you tonight to allow you the opportunity to ask questions especially tonight over

003the next couple of weeks because we do intend to bring this significant recommendation to you at the April 17th business meeting. Thanks. So as Ken mentioned before we get started I'll introduce a few folks from our team. So Dr. Luke Leurs is our director of curriculum. Julie Reguski is our K12 ELA content leader. So, she it's not just about writing curriculum, but making sure that our teachers have all the tools instructionally and resource-wise that they need in the classroom and the assessments and all the things that drive the instruction that happens in the classroom. And then Dr. Sheets is our literacy coordinator. She also works K12 and helps oversee all the literacy programming in the district. And then we have a few members of the academic department that are here to help if you have

004additional questions beyond what we have included in our presentation. Um, I'll also mention that Angie and Joan from Hin Mifflin Park are with us tonight and they are actually representing the company um, tied to the recommendation that we're bringing forward to you. And so as we get into the details of the resource and the specificities of the materials, if there are um, detailed questions, they're happy to jump up and answer those questions. And at the end, if you want to take some time to look at the materials, they're happy to serve as tour guides, for lack of a better word, while you look at those materials. So, um, you might remember that we had a work session about a year ago and we talked to you at that point in time about the findings of

005our ELA program evaluation. We talked a little bit about what we're currently using, what's working, and what we need. And what resulted from that was we need to look at a new K5 tier 1 ELA resource. And so, as we talk tonight, we'll highlight just a little bit kind of a reminder of what happened during that and what we learned and how that's connected to the recommendation that we'll be bringing to the April board meeting. Um, our folks, the literacy team, spent a significant amount of time this school year exploring options, analyzing data, reviewing the resources, collaborating with other districts, looking at the resource, and then going back and doing all of those steps all over again from multiple different resources to really make sure that the resource recommendation that we're bringing to you is

006one that we feel very confident about. Um, we are sure that we've picked the best resource for the Francis Hall community. Oh, I forget that I have clicker here. Um, we did follow our typical resource recommendation approval process, but you'll also notice that there were lots of additional layers built in. And so, as Dr. Rumpa said, when you purchase a resource for elementary K5, it's one of the largest academic or one of the largest academic purchases that a district can make. In Francis Howell, it's a resource that we will use with every student for six years, 600 teachers. And so, it has a significant impact and we want to make sure that we get it right. and we feel very confident that we got it right. Um, and so because of the magnitude of the

007purchase, you'll see some steps that we go through that aren't typical when we purchase a resource. And so just want to mention that this is not a typical resource approval process that we went through. We don't typically have a a resource workshop where we go through the resource. And again, it's because of the magnitude of what we're bringing to you. We want to make sure that you feel very comfortable with the purchase before we ask you to approve it next month. So tonight, we'll provide you a quick overview of the current reality. We'll talk a little bit about the process that we used and how decisions were made. We'll talk about what we learned along the way and how we have ultimately arrived at the decision. You'll hear from various members of the team as

008they share kind of what that journey looked like. And then our plan is to stop after each chunk of information and provide an opportunity to ask questions. And so you'll notice as we go through that the slides have a number in the top right corner. And so if there's a slide that you have specific questions around, feel free to jot that down and then we can go back and reference that as we get into the questions. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Julie, our ELA content leader. Hi, I'm Julie Regeski, the K12 ELA content leader. Um, I'm also a mom to three kids in the Frances District and my youngest is a struggling reader at second grade in John Weldon. So, I have both a professional and a personal investment in

009bringing this resource to our district. I've been working closely with Dr. Sheets, Mrs. Sty, and Dr. Lamers on bringing the new ELA resource to our elementary school to support our new curriculums and our district's uh literacy plan. I want to start by reviewing our current resources. The current ELA curriculum was written in 2017 and the teachers college units of study were adopted as the resource to deliver that curriculum. units of study emphasizes a workshop model for reading and writing and that encourages authentic engagement with text, but it lacks that explicit and systematic phonics instruction which was which was identified as a need in our program evaluation. The district began supplementing phonics instruction with benchmark phonics in 2020. It follows a researchbased scope and sequence incorporating direct instruction, multiensory activities and decodable text to reinforce phenemic

010awareness, letter sound relationships and word recognition skills. Grammar scope and sequences were created in the 2223 school year and patterns of power by Jeff Anderson was adopted as a grammar instructional resource in 2024. Hi, I'm Melinda Sheets. Whoops. Try that again. Hi, I'm Melinda Sheets, your district literacy coordinator. Our academic department and literacy team have been working on this project for about two years, and we're excited to bring this information to you today. This journey began last school year when we conducted a program evaluation on our elementary ELA core instruction. In May of last school year, we presented the findings of this evaluation to the board. I wanted to provide a quick review of our findings as it has laid the foundation uh to the work that we present to you today. On this slide,

011you see the overarching themes that emerged from our data collection. Um during our program eval data included survey data, student data, and an instructional materials evaluation using a rubric from Florida State University. We found several things going well such as our phonics resource and instructional co coaching model. Our overall reading scores were high even though we know we can perform higher. We also found areas where we need to improve. For example, our current resource is not aligned to the science of reading and does not provide enough support to our teachers. We also need to continue providing science of reading professional development for our teachers to enhance all student outcomes and increase teacher efficacy. Our oral language and vocabulary development is an important part of a student's literacy success and we need a resource that will

012support teachers in this [Music] instruction. A recent Missouri law indicates our core ELA instruction should be explicit, systematic, cumulative, and based on the highlighted areas that you see here on this slide. These are the core elements of the science of reading. They're often referred to as the five pillars. When the program evaluation team appraised the current resources ability to support implementation of the science of reading, the team indicated that some of our resources had appropriate scope and sequences for instruction for daily practice and systematic explicit instruction. However, our main resource did not have enough explicit instruction, not enough materials to differentiate learning, nor the instruction needed for transfer of skills to occur. After the program evaluation, it was evident that we needed to find a highquality resource that supported the science of reading as well

013as move away from a balanced literacy model toward a comprehensive literacy model. This school year, we've provided learning to all of our elementary staff on shifting from a balanced literacy model to a comprehensive literacy model. The comprehensive lit literacy model is identified in the state of Missouri's guidance to schools as well as part of legislation Senate Bill 681. Comprehensive literacy includes the science of reading and it also includes quality writing, content area literacy, developing higher order thinking skills as well as oral language development. Other states across the nation have also been shifting to a comprehensive literacy model. 40 states have implemented laws and policies related to evidence-based reading practices to improve literacy outcomes. In our learning with educators, we've shared how instruction in the ELA will look different. We've called these shifts. For example, we

014will shift away from guided reading to strategy groups. Strategy groups focus on targeted flexible instruction and it's based on students current grade level needs. Unlike guided reading, which emphasizes level-based text, strategy groups prioritize the Missouri learning standards that we want students to master within that particular ELA unit. Strategy groups are fluid and they can be adjusted as students skills progress, allowing for more dynamic and effective support. So, this slide highlights several key factors that informed our decision-making process. There are bulleted items here, but each factor was a complex review of the resource. As mentioned on the previous slide, it was essential to ensure that any resource recommended would align with our support uh toward our shift in comprehensive literacy. To demonstrate the thoroughess of this review, I'll highlight just one of those buckets and how

015we reviewed this re resourc's ability to support. I'll share the more detail about feasibility for supporting comprehensive literacy and research alignment. We conducted a thorough review of the resources materials by reading the lessons within each component of the units and reing the ancillary resources teachers will use with students during instruction. For each lesson, we assessed how well they supported the following: word recognition, skill application and development, differentiation, language comprehension, and self-regulation. All of these areas encompass the subcategories of comprehensive literacy. All right. So, this brings us to the start of our selection process. I worked with Dr. Sheets in July to review potential resources that aligned with the law regarding core ELA instruction. We reviewed four resources. Core knowledge language arts or CKLA benchmark advance wonders and into reading. In addition to looking over samples

016of each resource, we looked at reviews on ed reports, the reading league, and Texas resourcereview.org. Each applies distinct research-based criteria to evaluate instructional materials, ensuring comprehensive and rigorous reviews aligned with evidence-based [Music] practices. In our first column, you can see the reviews from ED reports and all four resources meet in the criteria reviewed. The second column represents the results from the reading league and three of the four resources were reviewed and the Texas resource review gave each resource a 100%. After this research, we were comfortable with our decision to bring all four resources to the curriculum and adoption team for review. In this initial review, teachers used a rubric developed by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance to evaluate Wonders CKLA benchmark advance and into reading. Our team consisted of representatives from

017each of our 10 elementary schools with various roles and grade levels represented. Vendors were brought in for presentations to the team and physical samples were sent to each elementary school. Digital access was made available to all teachers in the district as well. After the initial review with the rubric and after meeting with each vendor, interreading was an early favorite among the adoption team, praising its strong phonics, funological awareness, reading comprehension, writing, and language development instruction along with highquality text and engaging lessons. Wonders and benchmark advance followed with CKLA being the lowest rated based on the rubric results. After our first meeting, the teachers took the samples and information back to their buildings for others to review. We met two weeks later during one of the district PD days to continue revising the curriculum documents and

018exploring the resources. It's one thing to read about lessons and instructional practices, but it is much more effective to live it in the classroom with our students. So, we decided at that meeting to ask to trial at least two of these resources. To prepare for that, I started the trial process by reaching out to neighboring districts who were piloting or implementing the resources. Teachers continued to review these materials and our instructional technology content leader and our ADA coordinator began vetting these resources for their accessibility. We met again as a group in October. The technology and ADA leaders presented their findings on each resource. As you can see on the slide, each resource had some issues, but some more than others. CKLA had no readalouds for text and no captions on games or videos. Benchmark was

019difficult to navigate for students with motor and/or visual impairments and Wonders had no video captions. Overall, Interreading had the most accessibilityfriendly features for [Music] students. After learning more about the accessibility of each resource, we continued our learning about the district's literacy plan. After this learning, coupled with the information about CKLA's accessibility concerns, we decided to no longer explore that resource. The group was then divided into three groups to dig deeper into the remaining resources and use a new rubric created by Francis Hal that considered the criteria listed on the slide. We wanted a deeper evaluation of our potential resources before deciding on which two to trial. Teachers chose to trial into reading and wonders based on the findings listed here. The percentages are from the voting at the end of our day of learning. The

020academic team made the decision to also try benchmark advance due to how close the vote was between wonders and benchmark. A trial would give our teachers a chance to experience the components of each resource and see how effective they were in meeting the needs of our students at Franc's health. The literacy team met with building administrators to discuss the scope of the trials. We needed representation from all buildings and all grades. We wanted to avoid selecting firstear teachers or teachers who had visually impaired students as we would not be able to get braille materials quickly enough for the trial. We did not want an entire grade level to participate. So we could have a trial group and a business as usual group. So for example at Kley Elementary, three of the fifth grade teachers were

021the trial group and the other three were business as usual. And they would continue to use units of study, benchmark phonics and patterns of power. We would then be able to use our STAR reading assessment data for both groups as one way to evaluate the effectiveness of the resource. An exception was made at Daniel Boone due to the smaller class sizes and the teacher teams. Wonders would be trial from the end of October to winter break and into reading and benchmark advance ran concurrently from January to March 6. To participate in the trials, teachers had to attend training with each vendor, give an additional STAR assessment outside of the normal testing window to gather data, allow observations from the literacy team, complete a teacher survey, give student surveys, and send out a parent survey. Teachers

022would replace units of study, benchmark phonics, and patterns of power with whatever resource they were triing at the time. We asked them to use the resource with fidelity to get the most comprehensive feedback from them on how each resource would support our shift to comprehensive literacy. The literacy team consisting of myself, Dr. Sheets, Miss Sagi, and Dr. Lamers began classroom visits to observe instruction and provide any support for our trial teachers. We set up visits to neighboring benchmark districts currently in implementation of these resources to gather feedback and see each resource in action. We continued to gather data from teachers, parents, and students within Francis Health while also looking at the data and research from districts across the country. Communication was key during this period. So weekly Zoom calls were set up with administrators and

023coaches. And we also attended in-person collaborative meetings with coaches and principles as well. So we have re reviewed our current resources. We've talked about our program evaluation and the shift to comprehensive literacy. And we have reviewed our selection process and the scope of the trials. So now we'd like to pause and answer uh any questions you might have so far. [Music] Can you go back to slide nine real quick? Was just thinking I can certainly try number nine. Yes, just I didn't get to read through all of it. So the uh as I understand it the core knowledge is kind of known for bringing in all the the uh cultural literacy as the book right. Um do these other pieces have that component to it? Maybe I didn't word it right. Yeah. Um like can

024you provide a little bit more context for information? So the the core knowledge curriculum uh the idea behind it is that in order to to know uh in order to know the words you have to know the stories the you know you have to have the vocabulary you have to have the the mental background. Yes. You know it's it's the student who you know knows what baseball is or or doesn't you don't like culturally responsive. Yeah. Yeah. Culturally responsive, cultural literacy. Um, how much of the how much of that aspect do these other resources have as compared to to CKLA? Um, we will talk a little bit more about that. Each unit for each grade level is based around science or social studies or literary themes. And so therefore um they are not only tying

025in content area but building that background knowledge and content area vocabulary as well as literary vocabulary. Fantastic. You had mentioned visiting other districts. Um are those districts nearby and what other districts are using um any of these for? Like what can you share about that? Our closest district uh using Wonders is Winssville. So we did make a visit um out there uh to Boone Trail Elementary and then um Parkway is in first year of both are um Winsville and Parkway are in first year of implementation of these resources. Parkway is is benchmark advance and our closest district with um into reading is uh Orchard Farm. Um also Cape Gerardo um I've talked with both we didn't visit Cape Gardo. a little bit a far a farther drive. Um, but I did talk with their content

026leader as well. Um, so those are the areas that we visited. Thank you. Can you go to 16, please? I say I really like the study design. Are you going to get into any statistics or anything? Yes, we will later. Yeah. With our data. Perfect. You'll notice like Fairmont is second grade. You'll see that the whole team had a wonders and interring benchmark advance. And that's because benchmark advance was brought in after the um initial trial was set up. So our Wonders teachers and interreing teachers, those were the same teachers. So those that group did both. And so we had benchmark advance. So Fairmont was an interesting school because the other half of their second grade team then trial benchmark advance. I see that Harvest Ridge and Warren Oh no, Harvest Ridge and Independence did

027not um hold the trial of benchmark. Again, that was due to just how quickly the turnaround was. like it was uh we asked a trial benchmark in the beginning of December um and we had to ask for teacher teams to volunteer and they just they couldn't get anybody at that time. Yeah. Our next section is about test results and kind of our recommendation if you guys are ready to hear a little about what we found. Oh, so sorry. I keep trying to mute myself, but then I'm really trying [Music] to All right. So, at the conclusion of the trials, the team evaluated all the results and considered each resource in relation to the selection criteria. From here, we will share with you the results of the trial and what led us to our ultimate recommendation

028of inter reading as the K5 ELA resource. Uh teacher feedback was overwhelmingly positive with interreading. They appreciated the clear lesson layouts and engaging nature of materials for students. Interreading was seen as providing ample support for differentiated instruction with built-in scaffolds, various options for small group work and resources catering to different learning levels, including suggestions for supporting struggling learners and English language learners. Another major positive was how teachers saw their students were actively engaged and motivated in both uh reading and writing throughout into reading. Teachers biggest concern was with fitting every component of interreading into the current structures of our ELA blocks. This will be addressed as we work with building administrators on adjusting the allocation of minutes during ELA. The other concerns listed on the slide can be attributed to the length of the trial

029and the teachers not being able to get deeper into the resource just due to the time constraints. One of our trial teachers was so impressed with the growth she saw in her second grade writers. She sent us samples from a student who started off the year in a very rough spot with writing. There were frequent tears, minimal details, constant need for sentence starters and support. But by the end of the interreading trial, the same student wrote a multi-page imaginative story with little support from her. He says that writing is now the his favorite part of the day. And that's just another testament to how interreading will help foster writing stamina and an appreciation for writing even in our struggling writers. Parents had positive things to say about their child's experiences with with inter reading. Some

030of the comments we received were, "I really like how systematic inter reading is. I am hopeful this will be the district's choice. We have struggled all year to have my child be engaged with literacy, and this is the first time he is coming home sharing and using vocabulary and skills he has learned. I've seen so much growth in my daughter's reading abilities and even in her confidence in her writings. For example, she has gone from reading small books like Pete the Cat to now reading a chapter book called The Wild Robot on her own. I believe the program and her teacher are helping her reach her goals and become more successful. Students also felt positively towards the work they did with interreading. The routines built into the resource allowed for more actual learning time. We

031need to maximize every instructional minute we have with students and when there are clear routines in place for students, less time is wasted in moving from one activity to the next. Students also commented they felt that they were better readers and writers after the trial. If you recall our decision buckets from earlier in the presentation, we are able to show how interreading fills each bucket. Almost 74% of teachers who participated in the trials recommended interreading. Based on feedback from teachers, interreading is favored for its systematic and explicit instruction and foundational skills, its engaging content that leads to high student engagement, and its structured yet flexible approach to literacy instruction. Teachers found it easy to use and comprehensive, requiring no supplementation, which is a significant financial and practical advantage. Ultimately, the teams triing all three resources

032agreed that interreading is the best choice due to its overall effectiveness and positive impact on students and teachers. Our student data showed that students who participated in interreading had more positive growth on the STAR assessment than students who did not participate in a trial. We gathered research from both local districts dis excuse me districts and districts around the country who have adopted and implemented interreading. The neighboring districts who adopted uh inter reading in 2019 saw the co dip in scores like everyone else saw but have seen steady increases in map performance each year since. States like Mississippi and Massachusetts who have adopted interreading have made significant and positive growth on the NAPE and all of the research collected indicates that interreading aligns with the science of reading. So far, we've shared that information about four

033of those six decision buckets that we've considered. Uh Dr. Sheets will share how our selected resource aligns to the comprehensive literacy model and I will share what we will get with our purchase and Dr. Lamers will discuss the cost associated with the adoption of the resource. Um so in April we will bring um to the board meeting into reading as our ELA recommendation because as Julie's mentioned that it it has filled our decision buckets. Um we do have um Angie and Joanne in the audience that can answer any questions about the resource that we may not be able to answer for you today. But as I mentioned, comprehensive literacy encompasses not only the science of reading, but it also includes writing, content area literacy, the development of higher order thinking skills and oral language. So

034as I go through this um here we have the five pillars um which represent the science of reading um and this research is based on a body of knowledge that explains how the brain learns to read. It encompasses decades of interdisiplinary studies. The science of reading highlights the essential components of effective reading instruction. Um, and in addition to these pillars, oral language, background knowledge, writing, content area literacy are also critical for literacy development. In the following slides, I'm going to highlight a few examples from the resource that demonstrate how lessons in inter reading support the shift to compreh comprehensive literacy. And um these examples, they're really brief glimpses into each element from beginning to end into reading consistently supports comprehensive literacy and the needed resources that support um our teachers with effective literacy instruction. Okay.

035So here let's take a work look at word recognition. In this lesson example on the left, we have a fi a primary grade phonics lesson. I want you to notice how it guides the teacher through the instruction of vowel consonant e syllable types. It provides language for the teacher to use in his or her explicit instruction. It provides examples and it provides the anchor for the teacher to use. Do you see the man in the cape up at the top? Okay, cape. That's a vow consonant eword, right? So the students have this anchor as well to refer to as they are reading and writing. Moving over to the right hand side of the slide, we have an intermediate grade level example. This lesson focuses on morphology. Morphology is the study of base words, roots, prefixes,

036and suffixes. In this example, um it's an it's a lesson extension where students continue learning either in small group or on their own. And notice how that they're reminded um of the skill of morphology. Then they can explore in more detail more themes that they've already been taught during their whole group instruction with their teacher. Interreading lessons connect new information with prior knowledge. This is essential for building comprehension and critical thinking skills. Notice in the primary grade example on the left, learning begins with oral language development where collaborative conversations encourage students to listen and respond thoughtfully. As the students progress the grades, notice how the language comprehension evolves. By grade five, students develop a deeper understanding of various genres and characteristics that define those genres. Here, students are writing um responses to texts. Writing plays

037a crucial role in the development of language comprehension, helping students to refine their thinking by clarifying their explanations and sharpening their arguments. These skills foster critical thinking by encouraging students to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize uh leading to more thoughtful and independent readers and thinkers. Interreading units last typically 3 to four weeks depending on the grade level and the entire unit is devoted to a topic either a social studies topic, a science topic or a literary topic. Um before we even get started in the unit, teachers are setting goals with students. They're activating students background knowledge and sharing information with families. In this example, the theme is animal behaviors. Each unit starts with an essential question that corresponds to this theme. This unit's essential question is what behaviors help animals survive? Each unit includes texts focused

038on the unit's theme. These texts are not only informational texts, but short videos, narrative texts, and even magazines. You also have library books, a library of books to teach strategy groups. In this particular third grade unit, the students will also apply the skills they learn in a research project. Their task, create a wildlife blog. Inter reading, as mentioned, revolves around science, social studies, or literary uh themes. In this fourth grade unit, it's called food for thought. The focus is science and health. In the beginning of the unit, students will gain background knowledge on nutrition by watching informative videos. Additionally, there are severalformational texts on nutrition to deepen students understanding of the topic. Text within this late winter unit is complex and meets the Lexile standards for this grade level. Additionally, this unit ties to the

039fourth grade health standards. These standards indicate students should be able to determine the cause and effect of healthy lifestyle choices as they result uh relate to the three layers of nutrition, hydration, and exercise. The essential question in this ELA unit is what can we do to make more helpful food choices? In this unit, students are taught content area literacy by looking at text features withinformational text. Content area literacy is an important aspect of the comprehensive literacy model. All right. So, we can pause here again for any questions that we might have on the previous slides. Did you take a look at like student performance between the different resources like between different cohorts? Yes. Yes. Dive into those a little bit. Um we did uh so this year is our first year with the STAR assessment

040and you know that's we've made that shift because of um the legislation and our star is given three times a year um in 1 through 8th grade and twice in kindergarten. So we give that first test in August, September to everybody and that's like our baseline data. Um and then between the first window and second window there were 60 instructional days and within those days we had 16 dedicated to wonders. Those were kids triing wonders. Um and when that second assessment window was given we saw a significant improvement in the students who participated in the trial of of wonders. um when we have uh then we go on winter break and as we know winter break got a little bit longer this year with our wonderful Missouri weather um so we always experience a learning

041loss there's always a dip um you know in these winter months and when we had benchmark and inter reading triing we administered another star test um at the end of February beginning of March so that was represented about um 26 total instructional days so that's like 34 is less than the original window. um wonders the I'm sorry the interreading students they saw a an improvement um grew in addition um our benchmark advanced students actually had a regression they did not they saw negative growth within theirs um so you know we we look at star but we also know that there's a lot of things that come into factor with these data points and we know that from January to about spring break there's so many starts and stops in our school year um with snow

042days and things like that but we still saw you know, positive growth in our students who participated. And overall, it shows that students who had those 42 instructional days of a resource based in the science of reading saw much more growth than students who did not. Thank you. [Music] You had mentioned that 73.3% of teachers preferred into reading. Um what were the numbers of the people who preferred the other resources? Um so it really came down to um it was really just a a vote between benchmark advance and interrating. Um our our teachers sort of discounted wonders after the trials. Once they got into interrating and benchmark advance we knew that was not going to be the one for us. And so when I talked about fair amount earlier being kind of a unique school

043um the benchmark advance teachers at fair amount all voted for inter reading even though they experienced benchmark advance. So that 24% they voted for benchmark advance. So we even had some of our teachers who um did not do inter reading but saw what their teammates were were doing and saw what other grade levels in the building were doing. They liked that resource better, saw it be being more effective and more engaging. Um did you say the entire state of Massachusetts uses it to reading? They've adapted it as one of their recommended resources because actually don't they still rank highest in the United States at achievement? Yeah, I think Massachusetts had benchmark um inter reading. Those are on their list as well. Yeah. Okay. We mentioned in the first round that you looked looked at reports

044and some other sites and then you went into uh the the ues which I think is the the clear water works clearing house. Is that right? Um that particular rubric that we used was um it was on the department of oh sorry um the IEES rubric is that what you're referring to that we used? Yes. That is um that is on the department of education website but it was created by um Florida State University. Okay. My my underlying question there is is there any um studies research into this particular program over a number of years? Yes, there was um we looked at research um was it Cap was it Capstone United Cobblestone uh research group they have conducted from 2019 on um with uh with inter reading seeing significant growth in third grade and fifth

045grade respectively over the course of you know the use of the program. Um and I'm sure our reps could maybe speak to that a little bit more. Yeah, we have multiple e efficacy studies that have been done. Can I have a microphone for so people that people watching us online can hear? Here you go. You can sit right there. Thank you. We have multiple efficacy studies run internally by us but then by external companies as well with a variety of um district sizes, district population groups. All of them show positive impact. Obviously, some much stronger, much more than other um than the studies show, but we have a esser as a rating of um I can't even think of the word. It's above moderate. What's the the level above moderate? I think it's meets or

046exceeds. It's either meets or exceeds. It's not exceeds. So where it means it's it's you have to have a three to five year study to get and with the program being you know as new as it is we don't have that yet. We definitely have efficacies and we we can provide all of those to you guys to read through. We've got summary sheets on them as well. I could even sit back here and pull some of them up and give you some more information. Yeah, that'd be helpful to look at over the next couple of weeks. Absolutely. You had mentioned that in this version to reading that there is goal setting between the teachers and the kids. Um is that different? Is that unique with inter reading or is that something that's part of the

047other resources or the current resource that we're doing? Um when I was reviewing the resources for those components um it was more explicit and um more pronounced in our interviewing resource. [Music] Just one more comment on on any sort of background research, but if if you can target the ones that are whose demographics look most like Francis How, that would be most helpful. Yes, absolutely. [Music] All right, we will move on with what um we will be getting with our purchase of into reading and I will start with our student materials. Um, each student will get a copy of my book that includes all of the shared readings. Students can annotate and answer questions directly in these books. They can take them home at the end of the year to build their reading libraries at

048home. Each module or unit has a focal text. That's the main piece of reading that students engage with. Uh, teachers use these to plan lessons, ask questions, and guide students through comprehension strategies. They are paired with the other related texts, both fiction and non-fiction, to provide that broader exploration of the topic. Big books are in grades K through one and they are what they sound like. They're just enlarged versions of children's books to promote shared reading. In grades K through three, students have access to decodable text libraries. These are carefully crafted to include words that can be sounded out using the phononics rules and the letter sound relationships that students are learning. This builds decoding skills and more importantly confidence in reading. Interreading provides ample handheld materials for students, but they also have some online

049resources as well. Waggle aims to enhance student proficiency and growth in ELA skills through adaptive practice and personalized learning experiences. Waggle analyzes student data to provide the most appropriate learning experiences at the right time with personalized practice and instruction. While it does not replace the teacher, it provides ongoing formative assessments, allowing teachers to monitor student progress and make informed instructional decisions. It's designed to align with interreading scope and sequence so it reinforces core instruction. It has various assignment types including skill boost, learning goals, and games which can help engage students and foster a love of learning. HMH off also offers something called the family room which is a supplemental tool that teachers and families can use to support literacy at home. Teachers can print materials to support extended learning beyond the classroom with personalized tips

050and information about interreading and how parents can get involved in their students learning and these can be print uh printed in multiple languages. Parents and caregivers can also access these resources online at home. A variety of print and digital teaching materials are included with inter reading, including teacher manuals for each unit. In grades K through two, teachers can use articulation videos and instructional cards to deliver the direct and explicit instruction needed in phonics, phenemic awareness, and vocabulary. Teachers in grades 3 through 5 have vocabulary cards to use with students to reinforce the acquisition of new vocabulary. Studentfriendly acchre charts are available. Teachers can display these or print copies of the charts for students to put in their notebooks for easy reference. Book sticks are nice big sticky notes that teachers can attach to the back

051of big books and readaloud books to help guide instruction and refer to while reading with children. Foundational skills in Word Study Studio is a bank of sequence lessons and activities designed to provide intensive instruction and practice in foundational literacy skills like phonics, spelling, and word study. Knowledge maps explicitly teach students how good readers make connections automatically when they read and learn about a new topic. And class craft is a teacher centered tool that helps teachers run their classrooms and make lessons more fun and engaging. It has readyto-use activities for reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar. Teachers can use it to keep students focused and involved by adding gamelike features like avatars and points to motivate them. It also helps teachers see how students are doing in real time so that they can adjust um their lessons

052as needed and it makes it easier to manage that class and give different students the help that they need. One of the biggest concerns our teachers have with any new resource adoption is how much support they will get not only from the district but from the company as well. HMH includes a multitude of resources to support teachers, administrators, and coaches through their first year of implementation and beyond. As part of our package, all teachers get access to ED, the HMH learning platform. Ed integrates with Clever for easy single sign on use for teachers and students. Teachers will get an implementation guide with dayby-day instructions and explanations of materials to ensure a smooth start to the school year. Interreading addresses each of our priority standards multiple times throughout multiple modules so teachers can pinpoint when and

053where those standards will be taught and assessed. HMH will guide teachers through our first year of implementation with in-person trainings at all of our buildings. Supporting this shift to comprehensive literacy and professional learning around the resource is the focus of our elementary professional learning next year for 2526 school year. The teachers corner is the most impressive professional learning platform that I've ever seen. There are videos, self-paced learning modules, and community forums where teachers can collaborate with educators across the country who have implemented interreading. And finally, interreading supports learning in the content areas of social studies and science. The fine arts and social studies content leader, Dr. Matt Van Horn, and the science content leader, Dr. Sarah Norath reviewed the content in interreading and compared that with the topics in Missouri learning standards for elementary social

054studies and science respectively. They found that interreading would support priority standards in both content areas and this is beneficial as they move forward with writing new elementary curriculums for science and social studies this summer. So before I share information about the cost to the district, I want to take a moment to thank Julie Regeski, Melinda Sheets, Jen Stegy sitting back there, Dr. Buckman, the academic team, uh all the elementary principles, instructional coaches, all the members of the resource selection team, and the classroom teachers who participated in the trials. We've said many times this year that this is the most important academic thing we are doing as a district this year and that uh that fact was not lost on this group of people. Um as you've seen the intering resource is rigorous, thorough and aligns

055with all five of the decision buckets that we've discussed so far. Um in the next few slides I'll share information about the costs associated with adopting into reading as our K5 ELA resource. and I'll begin by discussing a resource that we'll no longer need. As we completed the trials, we kept a close eye on the impact our selection might have on supplemental resource use. Interreading also includes a robust phonics resource that accomplishes the same objectives as benchmark phonics, which is the currently adopted phonics resource in all uh district elementary schools. For this reason, with the resource with this resource approval, we will cease using benchmark phonics, which will result in a cost savings of at least $138,000 each year or $828,000 over the six-year term of this purchase. Our intention during the first year of

056implementation is not to use any major district purchased supplemental ELA resources at the K5 level. This will allow us to conduct a true evaluation of the utility and effectiveness of the resource. Um, we're aware that no resource is perfect. So, if our implementation highlights a need for supplementation, then we'll move to update practices or change the way we're implementing or potentially look at supplements that could meet student needs. We don't anticipate that being unique. Negotiations with HMH led to significant discounts of more than $800,000, which are noted in the fourth column of this slide. HMH submitted a final bid package that is highly competitive and close in scope with the other two vendors. For all the reasons that we've already discussed, we believe that inter reading is the best choice for our students. From a

057value standpoint, one important factor we considered is that interreading the inter reading purchase includes the waggle platform which wonders and benchmark phonics could not match. The selection team and academic leaders have complete confidence that interreading is the best choice academically while also providing the highest value to the district taxpayer. The total cost of the HMH proposal for interreading is 2,293,67457. HMH has agreed to spread the cost of this purchase over three fiscal years with 293,67457 coming from the current fiscal year. $1 million coming from fiscal year 26 and the last $1 million being paid in fiscal year 27. Paying for the resource in this manner provides another significant benefit to the district. Internally, there will be additional costs that are not reflected in the HMH cost proposal. In order to properly train teachers for the

058adoption of interreading, the district will need to pay summer and afterchool stipens and substitute teacher salaries. We anticipate that these stipens and sub costs will be approximately $45,000 to train and develop close to 600 teachers across 10 buildings. Approximately half of this cost will come from our 1% fund allocation. This cost would be consistent regardless of the resource chosen for adoption. And as a final step before bringing into reading to the board of education, we presented the resource to academic advisory on Tuesday, March 18th. After a thorough review of the resource and the digital tools and after viewing a presentation similar to this, academic advisory voted unanimously on the recommendation of inter reading as the district's resource or K5 ELA beginning uh in the 2526 school year. The next step in our adoption process was

059to hold this work session with our board of education. So board, that really is the information that we have to share with you tonight. We hope you were able to see kind of the journey that we took from the program eval where we highlighted the need to make a change and the process that we used this school year to explore the different options. um talk with other districts, look at the research, look at the data, gather input from our teachers, from our students, from our families, and really feel confident with the resource that we're bringing to you that it'll have a positive impact on our students, on our teachers, on our community in general. So, um, as I mentioned, the vendors are in the room. We have samples around there. We're happy to answer any

060additional questions you have. If you want to hop up and take a look at the resources, we're happy to allow time for that. We'll stick around and answer questions. uh we will bring the recommendation, it'll just be a purchase recommendation to the regular April board meeting. So between now and then, if you think of questions that you have, we're happy to answer those ahead of time or if there's additional information that you need, we're happy to gather that for you ahead of time. Um and then at the risk of being redundant, just again, this team has a very full-time job on a regular basis. And as you can see, there was a significant amount of time and energy put into this process on top of the normal duties that they do. So just appreciate everyone

061from this table to the buildings that participated in the process. Um you had mentioned that inter reading um offers this family room that allows it to be applied better at home. Can you explain what a regular parent might see in the family room um option and how that might help out overall? Tag. Yeah. So, in the the digital family room, it is a um it is a a resource that parents have access to um through the student login information and it has information on how to um you know, just kind of some tips and strategies for parents and families on navigation with our platform for their student as well as um their assessment information. um just tips and strategies on bringing literacy to you know having conversations at the kitchen table around what they were

062doing at school. Um it just has a lot of professional learning for teachers and teachers corner and then for families within the family room just to bring literacy reading writing um bring that back into the home life as well. So it allows the parents to use the same kind of language regarding reading at home that's also being done at the school. Exactly. It makes things just make more sense to parents who maybe are not um you know as involved in education as we are all are in this room. Um it just kind of gives them more information about why students are learning the way that they're learning which may look differently than the way that they learned uh reading and writing in their own school years. It really just kind of brings that information into

063the hands of parents and families. Thank you. And yes, my last question was that somewhere around slide 37, it said that somehat whether it's the anchor chats or the online waggle u that there is some uh mechanism there that allows the teachers to know how the students are doing in real time is the language you guys used. Can you explain what that looks like? How does a teacher um use what's going on to be able to know are they slipping? Are they excelling? How does this help teachers know the students progress in real time? So I would say that there's two things. So the first is the class craft. That's the teacher tool. Um so if I were a teacher using ClassCraft, I can display um something on the Smartboard for all students to see.

064And if they happen to have a device in front of them, then maybe on that device I'm displaying a question that I want them to answer. And then another tab on my computer, I'm seeing the answer. So as students answer, I can look and see, all right, these five, they get it. these five don't. So, tomorrow when I pull my small groups, I'm going to go ahead and pull them. Um, with Waggle, um, the way I've seen it used throughout the trial, um, as teachers have used it, as they're pulling their small group, they have students doing Waggle maybe maybe 10 to 15 minutes two or three times a week, but Waggle provides detailed reports and will assign skill practices as needed as the students respond. So, it's adaptive to them. So teachers then have

065access to look and see okay um you know this kid's been making this progress um on this one skill or standard and they're engaged. So it's during that small group time when sometimes we walk into classrooms in small group the teachers has the small group and the kids are supposed to be doing things but they're not doing the things. Waggle helps to keep them engaged in that and that's still they're getting the reteing they're getting extension and um through the ed platform teachers can pull reports on students on a daily basis and see what kind of progress they've made and where they're sort of at each skill. And you believe this resource offers that better than the other resources? 100%. Mhm. In an ideal world, you know, we're trying to take things off our teachers

066plates. And I think we all recognize that for an elementary teacher, this adoption, it's a learning curve. It's a lot more. Um, you touched on Waggle and some of the data pieces, but when we think about differentiation, what we're asking teachers to do in the classroom, you mentioned English learners, but maybe students with special needs. What is it offering by way of providing that information and changes in instruction for them? Um, I can speak to this, but I know our vendors can also come up as well. Um there are um there are very specific targeted um English language learner lessons. They're tabletop mini lessons for every single lesson within a teacher's guide. It has okay um you know for your struggling readers these are these are the steps and scaffolds you can take for our

067struggling writers here's the steps and scaffolds you can you can make you can elaborate more. Yeah. And and for every lesson there are um English language supports right inside of the teachers guide. So there is substantial, moderate, and what's the last one? Light. Substantial, moderate, and light scaffolding for each lesson. So what if I'm in foundational skills, if I'm in write reading, if I'm in vocabulary, if I'm in writing, I have English learner support. Um, as well as just struggling learner support and ways to challenge those who are ready for more. Uh, additionally, there are English language development lessons that are provided for every single daily lesson that is centered around language development. So, as a teacher, if I want to pull a small group support for a struggling reader, for an English language learner,

068for a student who wants to focus on skills and strategies, or for students that are ready for that extra challenge, into reading provides those resources and the list of those resources at the weekly level so that teachers know exactly the right support for the right student at the right time. You want to talk about books and how they blend into the [Music] Yes, we we also have HMH readers that um are available for teachers to be able to use to continue to build that background. I know you had talked about um the importance of building background knowledge around these topics that students are learning in order for them to understand vocabulary and and to really be able to comprehend the text. We provide additional uh HMH readers that can help students to continue to build

069that background knowledge uh and to do so either with teacher support or to read to a partner to read independently that again center around that module topic in science or social studies or literary themes that they can now continue to build that knowledge on their own as well as within the classroom community. And are those readers part of the options included with resources? Okay. Absolutely. I understand this is subjective, but Dr. Sheets and Sus, you spent a lot of time with this. Um, what excites you most? Like what if you were going to go talk to parents tonight teachers? What would you say when we think about closing the achievement gap? Um, you know, the better core instruction, core literacy materials, the fewer kids hopefully that need reading success plans, less intervention. So, what's mo

070what sites you most excited to hear that tonight? Well, I have spent my career as an eighth grade ELA teacher, and I came to this district in 2020 in 2015. And I've seen a decline in middle school reading and writing abilities. And what I'm seeing now in classrooms through these trials gets me so excited. And I'm I'm bragging to my sixth, seventh, eighth grade friends like, you guys, just wait. Just wait. Um, we are we're back to providing those foundational skills. um seeing students excited, you know, the the one teacher who mentioned the uh the student who was excited about writing. I went to we visited classrooms constantly and um one teacher said, "Okay, guys, it's time for writing." Another little boy went yes. And I was like, "You do not see. I'm sorry. You

071don't see little boys, especially, you know, second grade be like, "Yes, it's time for writing." They are engaged. They're excited. They are they're enjoying the the content that they are getting. Um, and they're they are becoming more confident. Um, I sat through another a phonics lesson and students were just automatically going through listing um, all of the different sounds that a letter can make. And I pulled the teacher aside and I was like, "You told him I was coming, right?" And she goes, "Nope. They're just this is becoming automatic." Because we are very systematic. This is a very systematic system. So, that's what really excites me to see what these kids are going to be doing when they get to middle school and high school and how those how that's going to improve. Um, and

072just how excited they are for just reading and writing in general. Again, one of the things that I I kind of stole my thunder here. Um, I I was going to ask about that that I read the the letter that he wrote about the astronauts and Mars and things like that and it it struck me. It's, you know, I I thought back like what was the what were the things that I love to see about my kids as they're coming up and reading and it was one of those things. It's the confidence behind it and and how they come home and you know at first they were like eh and now she comes home and she's like that's the first thing she does and she picks up a book and then she's you know they

073have time in class where they can be doing anything and she's reading and I'm like that totally was not me. I don't know where you get that probably from your mother. But um I I guess my my question surrounding that is can you give us a little bit more insight as to how the teachers saw the confidence building in those types of kids as they were as they were coming out with this and and and learning how to how to adapt this new this new curriculum? What did they see? How was that going? It seems like it it really hit home with these kids. I think um what teachers commented on more and more and more using all of their resources was man we have really lacked in teaching vocabulary and um watching students get

074excited about learning new vocabulary words. Um that way they are feeling more confident as they approach a text. They're not intimidated by it. That was across the board. That was that was you know in from kindergarten through through fifth grade. Um, teachers saw just more um more students uh being willing to try reading um without that fight in them because that's what my kids do. You know, he's the fighter right now. He's he doesn't want to read when he gets home. He hates it. He's and I, as an educator, but not in elementary, I'm using the words and the language that I'm getting from the lessons that I'm seeing with him at home to help him in his, you know, tier three reading practices. Um, I think I got off track because I was talking

075about my own kid. I'm sorry. Teachers and teachers are loving they have more time to actually teach. It is less time trying to piece together all three of these separate resources and more time is focused on actually teaching and getting in and and really, you know, digging deeper with their students. [Music] I have a few odds and ends that I would like to throw in there. Mine's probably a little bit more nerdy than Julie's, but um just thinking about um the all that we have learned around teaching reading and how the brain learns to read, being able to actually see um that in daily lesson plans. So why are why are students um able to apply this or why are teachers um increasing efficacy? It's because of the uh systematic cumulative explicit lessons that are

076are written in this particular resource. And um I I think that that shift in um you know the teachers commented that how am I going to fit all of this in? Well, it looks different than what we've always done. And so the teach the students are getting a lot more direct instruction that what we've had before. And so I think that also plays into the successes that we have seen and our students confidence as well as our um teacher e efficacy raising questions for you. I have a few questions. Um is this for six years adoption? Okay. Um, you mentioned Orchard Farm is the only other one around here that you How long have they been using? Do you remember? 2019 they adopted. They were never a units of study school. They were Journeys and

077then Journeys was discontinued and so they picked into reading and Cape Gardo was in the same uh they they were never units of study school and I know Lee Summit is also adapted like they're starting to adapt but so they had six year. Do we know if they're reading it? Um, Orchard Farm. Orchard Farm. Not that Not that we were the same. They are. Um, so they are I think they have one more year until they're up for their curriculum rewrite. So I know they are still enjoying the resource. They even have version one. So we would be adopting a version three and they are still um enjoying interreading and and seeing success. You I thought I picked up that you said maybe that uh ELA minutes will go up to fit everything. They won't

078go up. It'll just be how we like allocate our time. Um so the minutes will stay the same but um how we spread out reading, writing, grammar, word studying will will look differently but the the actual minutes will not change. No. For an example that in right now in uh primary grades, they spend 15 to 20 minutes on phonics. They have structured literacy lessons in uh version three which are about 45 45 30 to 45 minutes. So, uh it'll still be within that 150 minutes, but we'll be shifting uh where they allocate that time. Um when when we change this, there will be some kids maybe fourth, third, fourth, fifth graders who won't be on track. I don't know a better way to say it. You know, they didn't start in kindergarten like the kindergarters

079and first graders. Uh how does the how does that work with kids who are in the middle? Say we've got answers. Yeah. So, as part of the professional learning um and our training, one of the or few of the resources that we show are supports to help differentiate and and fill in some of those skill gaps that are potentially um missing from previous grade levels, including foundational skills as well as um looking at reading comprehension and writing support. There are embedded resources in those differentiation tools to be able to support this is what we're working on right now in say fourth grade decoding. Here's what we're working on and here are some mini lessons that if I have some students that need some extra skill support from third grade, second grade, first grade. I'm able

080to pull those as an educator to be able to use with my students in my fourth grade class. So, does the teacher PD look different for fourth grade teachers versus first grade or are they all in one cohort? So, it can um that that can be done as a whole group for sure, K through five or split into grade levels. Um but however, the the professional learning itself will cover all of the components of in reading. So, it will be a session that really gets teachers when they're opening up these boxes of resources and and seeing how they all fit together. that will include core instruction day-to-day as well as differentiation and intervention supports inside of in reading. I'm going to ask Dr. Alvin to pop up and she can talk a little bit about

081what we have planned for teachers in terms of professional learning at the beginning of the year and then throughout the school year. Yes. So, we're actually going to start if you remember from the beginning of the presentation around the shifts in comprehensive literacy. So I think one thing to keep in mind is we are adopting a new resource and we think of that slide with all those shifts. There's also shifts in how we're teaching literacy. So we're really committed to not just next year but the following year to provide professional learning for our teachers around the resource as well as those. So it really will be a two-year learning um process. We um will do like they were talking about some of the learning will be mixed where they are in grade level specific. So

082like your kindergarten teachers will be cohorted together working with um our interreading PD experts and then that will also be mixed with some training within their building where we will be really building capacity in some of our teachers within our buildings to be building trainers as well. And so those trainers will receive professional learning also from our into reading specialist to be able to provide that. So, it'll be kind of a mix where there we'll have some learning that's very specific to their grade level in a cohort, but then also with their building um as well as they can look at some vertical alignment too and having those conversations. The other thing that we're adding that we're excited about is we'll have teachers apply to be a lab classroom trainer as well. And so, that's

083just again building more capacity in our buildings of who's a go-to in the building I can go to when I'm struggling with, you know, how to implement this or what does that look like? And so those teachers will receive PD from our interreading specialists as well and they'll open up their classrooms for our teachers to come in and get like a peak of you know I'm just really we mentioned the phonics the word study I I need to look at that how are you getting it down to that 30 minutes and they'll open their classrooms for teachers to come in and experience that and really learn from each other. So we're working to just really provide a comprehensive PD plan that's a mix that's going to meet all staff needs um as we go forward.

084So since since you're up, I'll ask one more PD question. Um, right now we we've done a fair amount of letters training for teachers. Guess I'm just curious. How is the letters different from this? I'm sure maybe that's more advanced or could you speak to that a little bit? That's a great question. So I'm going to let I will tell you our plan for to continue letters. Um, we were lucky with our ESSER funds that we were really able to get 60 teachers this last summer. Um, completing the letters training is a huge commitment. It is a very intensive PD that requires a lot of outside time on your own like 50 40 so I mean it's significant and so these teachers were committed to coming and doing that work outside of the time um

085and it's a significant cost so we are excited that we through the funds we were able to do that um Dr. She has worked with our budget this year to propose of how we can continue to provide letters training in unique ways whether that's some afterchool cohorts things that we can do around you know the substitute situation and so we're committed to continue to provide letters but I'll let her explain kind of what the difference between the two is um so letters is really um the professional learning uh the theory behind the science of reading. How do students um develop language? how do they develop skills in order to learn to read and spell words um accurately? Um so it goes through um you know the the four-part processor in the brain, the dendrites and

086how those connect through instruction. Um and it gives specific activities that um I think mult multimodal was on one of the slides that we when we looked at our resources we wanted um multimodal learning because that that does build the neuropathways in the brain. So they learn about all of those. They see example activities and it's general. Um so like for example, you'll have we might we had kindergarten through fifth grade teachers in our letters cohorts last summer. Um and so they learn general information about teaching, reading, and spelling. With inter readading, they're going to see a lot of what they learned in letters present in the resource except it's grade specific. And so it's going to go into the resource is going to go into more detail of like I I showed you the

087example of the a consonant e syllable type. It's going to go into more specifics and more detail about how to teach that to decode as well as to read. Does that help? Yeah. So it's it all it all drives it does. Yeah. Other questions for you? Um, I was just wondering if any of the other resources tied in social studies and science. They do. They do. Yeah. Okay. I don't have enough information. I The information is coming. I'm sure the data you talked about, you're going to provide data for comparable school districts. How would it relate to our district? you'll we could get some information on relative cost of the other curriculum that you looked at to compare to this um as well as what was the other the data as well as the you

088said substantial improvement in those classes that used the inter reading. I'm sure we'll get that data as well. So all that information will be available for us to to consider before the next meeting. Right. So yeah. Just one more on on the cost. So we see here, you know, 2.29 million. The sheet prior had a you know estimated savings of uh 828 from benchmark. So we're I should subtract that 8.28 from 2.2 rather. So I'm sure the next presentation will also include that how that will be incorporated into the overall budget. Yes, Dr. Lams he's worked with Miss Embry um she's been working with each department to gather information for next year. The adoption of this resource has been included along the entire you mentioned the next presentation. So I just want to be clear

089this is the presentation at the next meeting. It's just going to be in that list of purchases, right? I guess I I guess the president wrong before that information all that information we talked about will be provided to us so we can consider it before the next. All right. I'll be the first to say thank you. It looks like you guys have done a lot of work and uh I'm excited about this one. I would also say they do and um is there any possibility that data is visible to the public like how is that will that be in terms of yeah I think what we could do is whatever they provide we could post under tonight's meeting on board docs under public content along with this presentation that way community can see here's what

090happened in the classrooms the issues that Brown was just mentioning that great resources here yeah those are we We were this week's we've been talking about this um talked about having the resources available in this building if people want to come in before the next board meeting that someone at the lobby or near the HR office we can have them available if people want to come in and peruse them. That's good. So I I would just say to tie this in with with the data and everything I this is going to be a significant investment. So I think the community would have a right to know like Mr. Blair's talking about the community should have an expectation of what we should be able to achieve by adopting this significant cost, significant gains. I think that's

091that's only fair. I do have a couple follow-up questions. Um curious, I appreciate that you're an eighth grade ELA teacher. Um was there any of our like middle school ELA interventionist sport teachers that were involved in like reviewing this resource? they have any input. Um, so I actually uh reached out to just, you know, kind of uh unofficially to some of my uh friends in sixth grade um at I was at Hal Middle, so reached out to Miss Renee and um just kind of showed her what what we were looking at and she was really excited because it really more aligns with what we've had to do at the middle school level um in in trying to sort of close some of these gaps um and and more align with how we teach. Um so

092for example um you know students in middle school are always you know responding to literature and and annotating text and and it's not so much you know uh big long imaginative pieces um of writing that we're currently doing in units of study but it's more evidence-based like can you pull this from the text can you can you um evaluate a piece of reading and that's what these this resource does and it's having students do and I think that was one of the holdups um some of the teachers first saw like they're not writing enough. Well, yes, they are. They're just they're it's more quality over the quantity. Um, and so she was excited to see that this would be something that was kind of more aligned with how we instruct in the middle in middle

093school. I really appreciate that because I know elementary school, middle school, and like there's a gap in between. Yeah. And you know, when you talked about like how are we going to close those gaps? Well, just that's what you know, middle school we we we do. you know, we have we'll have three or four elementary schools feeding into one in middle school and that sixth grade year is just built. We are just trying to get everybody, you know, where they need to be. And what's exciting is that with we get a resource like this and you know that that work won't have to be as strenuous in middle schools to focus more on instruction in the middle school level. Um I did notice there's no new tiered interventions or anything built into this. So we

094you would be utilizing say current tiered interventions for any struggling readers. Is there any concern over that as far as like if do do I guess do does that match up properly do we think or um so we are um doing a little bit of revision with our tier three interventions. Um we currently are using take flight and build which you um have we've presented on that to the board before and our reading teachers have gone through that two-year training. We're finishing that up this school year. Um and then we are adding additional structured literacy interventions to our tier three. Um with that being said, the num the students that we're servicing will uh look different. Um it's going um to be our students who are at the 0 to 15 percentile rank in our

095tier three and then we will have a little bit more flexibility in our tier 2 interventions to be um either doing currently what we're doing with our programming such as 95% group or um working more specifically on grade level standards. Thank you. Um I know there are some requests for da similar district data. I'd be curious to see if I know we said there's a kind of separate specialty area for English language learners. I'd love to see any data around that as well as any data for like diagnosed like struggling readers like you have struggling leaders that just haven't had enough reading and you have struggling readers that have a reason they're struggling. Right? So those that know like a dyslex has dyslexia there's there's a reason for it. How does this impact them and

096is it bringing them up as well? if there's any data around that be curious. But no, I really appreciate all the hard work and um that went into this. Any other questions for Thank you very much. Thank you. I would like a motion to adjourn open session. Second. All those in favor say I. All say no. Eyes happen. Thank you everybody for joining. It's going to go all the data,