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[Van der Kloot]: So I'll read this, our normal paragraph. Please be advised on Wednesday, March 10th, from 4 to 5.30 PM, there will be a curriculum subcommittee meeting held through remote participation via Zoom. The purpose of this meeting is to review the ELA language arts curriculum in the Medford Public Schools, pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. and the governor's March 15th order imposing strict limitations of the number of people who may gather in one place, this meeting of the Medford School Committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Specific information and the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and or parties with the right or requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the city of Medford website www.medfordmass.org. For this meeting, members of the public who wish to listen or watch the meeting may do so by accessing the meeting link contained herein. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so, despite best efforts, we will post on the City of Medford or Medford Community Media websites an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. The meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast Channel 22 and Verizon Channel 43 at 4 p.m. Medford Public Schools is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting, mps02155-org-.zoom.us. The number is 933-2658-3171, which is the meeting ID. For a phone number, it's 1-301-7158-592. Any questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing pvanderclude at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information, your first and last name, your Medford street address, and your question or comment. On the agenda today, we have a review of the English language arts curriculum in the Medford public schools, humanities director, Dr. Nicole Piazza. Superintendent, do you want to say anything before we begin?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, good afternoon. I am really pleased to have this opportunity with Dr. Chiesa to present all of the wonderful programming that is happening under ELA and the proposed plans for things, next steps that we're thinking about for next school year. There's a lot of information in today's presentation, but I hope that it will be able to answer a lot of questions and concerns that members of the community might have. So I would like to pass it on to Dr. Chiesa for her to present to the committee this afternoon. Thank you.
[Van der Kloot]: Great. Thanks, Maurice and Dr. Chiesa.
[Chiesa]: Thank you. So I believe you may have the presentation. I'm going to share my screen if that's okay. Great. Can everybody hear me? Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. So let me just do. All right. Wrong slide. Sorry. Got to go to the beginning. Excuse me. I didn't think you were hitting us with the price points first, Nicole. No, I know, right? I was saving that for the last. So sorry. I have a nice presentation slide. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. I really appreciate the time. I know there's a lot going on, and I appreciate the dedication to English language arts. I'm hoping you can see my screen now. And does the view look OK for you? Yes. So I'm going to go quickly through the presentation because I want to make sure that you all have time to have the questions answered. And I don't know, of course, interject as you see fit. However, you want to move forward with it is fine with me. I'm going to briefly look at the state expectations. I'm going to then go into all of the hard work that we've been doing in English language arts from the curriculum, the PD. and the resources that we use and a lot that we have added this year. I'm going to touch upon equity and ELA because that's been a very important goal for us this school year. And then we will look at goals and next steps. And part of that will be those price points that popped up. So very, very briefly, I include this slide only because I want the committee to understand that not only are we following the English language arts framework, but we also have three other important resources that the state expects us to align towards. The first is the mass literacy guidelines. This is a new set of guidelines that was established this school year. It had been in the works for a few years and it came out this school year. And I will talk about it in just a moment. In addition to that, we also have the early literacy screener guidelines, which you are familiar with. that is something that we are working with for our K through two learners. And in addition to that, there are numerous literacy grants, including MTSS grants, product grants that are ongoing. So I include this diagram to show you that there are other influences to the ELA frameworks that my department looks very closely at and works with very closely. I can't switch to the next slide. So when we think about just the English language arts framework itself, it's very important to recognize that we have not just reading standards, but we have writing standards, speaking and listening standards, and language standards. They're nearly the same type of standards, K through five and six through 12, except that K through five we do have something called reading standards for foundational skills. So that is an extra anchor standard that we do utilize, that we must follow for elementary education. This is a little bit more about mass literacy. It's a comprehensive guide. It's devoted to high quality core instruction and evidence-based early literacy. It takes the science of reading and provides educators with a lot of different resources to support those evidence-based instruction for early literacy following the science of reading. And there's numerous schools that are included in this guide. This guide is very comprehensive. It takes up multiple, has different multiple pages within the DESE website itself. But in essence, it's looking at providing information and guidance on literacy acquisition and instruction. It's looking at those evidence-based literacy practices and it's compiling quality instructional resources, which is really helpful to us as we navigate as a school on the science of reading because more and more over the next several years, more and more resources will become available. And the third piece, when we think about just state expectations is that early literacy screener. This slide was presented just last week as well. This is where we took that early literacy screener. It walks you through the history, which was, as you know, we had back in 2018, Governor Baker signing a law into practice to develop screening procedures for dyslexia. And then in 2019, 89 people were selected to represent states districts. And presently, we are still awaiting those final guidelines for an early literacy screener. So we know that the department has issued a draft. It is being reviewed by stakeholders, but we are still in a little bit of a holding pattern because we don't have the specific guidelines that the state has set. That will essentially tell us this is exactly what you need to look at when you before you finalize an early literacy screener. Before I move on. to the meat of the presentation, the district's resources. Are there any questions I can answer? Yes.
[Graham]: Yeah, thanks. Sorry. I was just curious whether the district had a reaction to the draft guidelines and whether the district has submitted a public comment about the guidelines or sort of what your thinking is about what the guidelines are saying versus what you, would have expected them to say or would desire them to say?
[Chiesa]: I have not seen the specific guidelines. It went out to specific stakeholders and I was not, Medford was not one of them. We're just getting bits of information. So we haven't seen the final ones. We have had some people involved in the process of development, but we haven't seen the draft yet. Okay, awesome. I think we have a good sense of what it's gonna be like, but we don't have the draft yet. Are there any other questions on this visual of the state expectations before I move on? Okay. So in response to all of the issues, not issues, sorry, in response to all of the state expectations, we have, the district has been working extremely hard to partner, to make solid partnerships and provide some solid professional development to our teachers. The goal of this PD is really to build capacity for our teachers in these shifts to evidence-based reading, science of reading and beyond. At the secondary level, we've had a lot of shifts where we're looking at culturally responsive teaching, creating inclusive classrooms. So this list gives you examples of some of the professional development that we have done this school year. This school year, we've actually done all of this, this school year, and we had done it last school year as well. Some examples are we've worked very closely with the Hill for Literacy. We've worked with them to bring in our enhanced core reading instruction, which is that new phonics or foundational skills program that we're offering to the K-2 students. They've also done professional development for us last year, specific to the science of reading for K-5 educators. This year, we had Crafting Minds, which is Dr. Melissa Orkin and Dr. Elian come to Medford to present to our staff more about the science of reading, specifically looking at when students hit those stumbling blocks, what are some ways that we can push through and better understanding those developmental stages of reading so that as we provide instruction and assessment, we are more educated in the path that we take. We've had training in Lexia Learning, We've had training in our early literacy screeners. We've done a lot of work with Newsella. Newsella started off as a social studies resource, and as it has grown, it has really grown to be a very solid literacy resource for us as well. So as the secondary staff just the other day took a PD, they looked at looking at Newsella through culturally responsive teaching. looking at different resources like A Mile in Our Shoes and Black Students Matter. And we looked at what Moosella has to offer because we have that product and we want to make sure we're using it for all of these important topics. We've also done a lot of PD at the secondary level on creating an inclusive classroom, making sure that multiple voices are heard. And at the middle school level, we've also, in just a week, we're going to be doing training on Lexia Power Up, which we were recently able to purchase, which is very similar to Lexia Core 5. It's used as an intervention tool to support our readers. And then we are hopeful before the end of the year to provide a mass literacy resource overview for our teachers. You already know this information. Very briefly, we have Alexia Rapid we're piloting at three of the schools, sorry. And we have the MAP Growth we're piloting at the Columbus. Both pilots continue to go well. And again, we can't make an official determination of where we will end on an early literacy screener until we have those guidelines available. Today, as I talk, I'm going to be looking at tier one and some of tier two for ELA. So I just wanted to include this visual as a guide some of my presentation. I'm gonna delve more deeply into the elementary curriculum now, unless anybody has any questions before I continue on PD. Okay, so I give you this visual to, show you that within the ELA framework, we have many different anchor standards that comprise it. We have speaking and listening. We have language, which is grammar. We have reading for literature. We have writing. We have reading for informational text. And at the elementary level, we have reading for foundational skills. The elementary tier one instruction, so the instruction given to all students, is where we're following units for instruction based on a number of literacy resources. Each educator operates with a specific pacing guide that details each of these units. And each unit is taking into account all of those different anchors within the curriculum. Now, we use a lot of different resources to deliver the elementary curriculum. And I think this is a point that I really wanna emphasize is As you know, we've had journeys for a number of years, but we have also added in new resources. So we did see a deficit last year when we spoke with journeys specifically in the foundational skills area. We were able to add in, thanks to the generosity of school committee and through some grants, working with Ms. Caldwell, we were able to add in the enhanced core reading instruction, which is called ECRATE. This is an evidence-based systematic reading instruction for teaching phonics. That was new towards the end of last year, and it continues this year. We have had some intervention offered through MAP Growth that was new in 2019. Lexia Learning was also introduced last school year. And Lexia Learning is more than just Lexia Rapid. It is more than just Lexia Core 5. Lexia Learning is constantly growing and we're growing with it. On March 2nd, we had a PD for our elementary teachers on Lexia Core 5. and Lexia learning and what we're seeing with Lexia learning is it's taking other programs. Some of you may be familiar with letters, and it's taking the letters program another intervention program and making it available on their digital platform so as they grow and expand. we're taking the time to understand that growth and find the best way to communicate these new tools with the teachers. So we've been very pleased with Lexia Learning beyond just Lexia Core 5, beyond just Lexia Rapid, to see what other interventions it has for our students. Another thing that we have for our elementary students is Newzella. Newzella is going to take articles informational, some fictional. Text has specific text sets and it takes those text sets and it changes the reading level so that the student can access the information, but at varying reading levels for the child. Students in the social studies classroom have been using that at the middle school for a number of years, but we found that our ELA teachers have been using it quite a bit So we brought it down to our elementary for three, four, and five, and they have trained on that and are adjusting to that now. So it's another addition when I think of my tier one ELA curriculum resources, that is another addition to it. We also added this year Moby Read. Moby Read is an assessment tool, but also offers a digital library with decodable readers for students. I also forgot to mention that Lexia Learning, just one of the new things they came out with was decodable readers for our K through three students. So teachers are using that quite a bit as well. We have reading A to Z, which if some of you have elementary students, you might be familiar with that as being called Raz Kids. So we've been offering that for a number of years to our grade K through two, as well as to students that are in need of some additional reading support beyond grade two. And Moby Read appeared twice for some reason. So that gives you a snapshot of just an understanding that we're constantly adding new programs, particularly now with this shift for the science of reading and evidence-based instruction. We're trying to pull more in to better support our students. Other curriculum resources is something called ReadWorks. Zaner Blauser is used for writing. We do use classroom novels when we get to third, fourth, fifth grade. We have audio books available for students, and we also have additional informational texts with a multicultural emphasis, as well as just an assortment of different excerpts from a variety of different resources. When we think about tier two at the elementary, this is some of the classroom teachers. The ones I have listed are a little bit more specific to the classroom teachers. So we have Houghton Mifflin for resources. We have Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Decoding Power. We have Lexia Core 5, which has an intervention and an enrichment component. We have reading A to Z, which also has an intervention component. So it's really, it moves back and forth as a tier one, but also a tier two intervention. ECRI has a tier one, but it also has a tier two. So as we continue with our professional development, we're working hard to make sure our literacy specialists working with Ms. Galussi on that to make sure that they are trained in the tier two offerings for ECRI as well as the classroom teachers. We have write-in readers and we have something called Houghton Mifflin Harcourt toolkits. So these are all used at the tier two level. The tier two is done during reading groups. It's done during wind blocks. And then of course we have our literacy specialists and our title one specialists that infuse other resources as well. When we think about elementary accountability, I've just listed a variety of different assessments that students would look at. We have the early literacy screeners, running records, and mock assessments for MCAS as we get to the grades three through five level. Before I move to secondary, I was wondering what questions I can answer for elementary. Unless you prefer me to keep going and ask at the end, however you want to do it.
[Graham]: I think I remember when we were looking at the budget last year, there was an ask from the elementary school principals around Zaner Blosser and an expansion of material that my recall is did not get funded. Is that true? Or I can't I'm trying to like recall off the top of my head the context, but I thought it was like an expansion to grade four, perhaps or something like that. So can you shed any light on that?
[Chiesa]: Yes, that's an excellent question. So I think Miss Glusi, my she might need to chime in just a little bit as well, since she knows the details, but Zaner Blauser, they were trying to expand it into the upper grade levels. And also I believe that each principal asked for some additional consumables for all of the grade levels. And I don't think that was something that could, that the committee was able to provide last year. So, but I do, that request was in, you are correct. Ms. Galusi, did I misspeak or is that accurate? think she's muted.
[Van der Kloot]: Suzanne.
[Galusi]: There we go. Thank you. I couldn't unmute. No, that's I think in this COVID time, you're exactly right. It was something that the principals were working on in collaboration with Jan Hollenbeck, who's the director of Oh, she has a very long title, but she works, she also works with the OTs, so the occupational therapists. So part of that work was done in collaboration with her. And yes, you are correct. It would include a K to four focus with the printing, as well as the cursive writing. It was definitely put on hold due to COVID and the fact that a lot of it did involve consumables. And with this year where some of us are in person and some of us are not, we just put it on hold for a little bit. It's some conversation that we are going to be having.
[Chiesa]: Yes, we have a, Ms. Hollenbeck has worked very hard on that. She formed a committee that I was part of with the principals to put these requests in. And also looking at some online resources as well, which sounds kind of funny when you think about handwriting, but they were actually pretty accessible too. Thank you. Should I continue to secondary and await questions?
[Graham]: Paulette? Yes. I think there's a hand up. Ms. Hayes?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, please. Go ahead, Sharon.
[Hays]: Hi. I was wondering, could you explain what the ECRI is as an elementary school parent? I'm getting to see, of course, all the different materials and things that my first grader and third grader are using, and I'm not sure I know or would be able to recognize what kinds of materials might be related to that. Could you describe that just a little bit?
[Chiesa]: Absolutely. So a lot of what ECRI, so Enhanced Core Reading Instruction, or ECRI, is targeting those foundational skills like the phonics, phonemic awareness, that we did see somewhat of a deficit in when we were looking at our data. And so the way you might see it, Ms. Hayes, is it's a lot of it is in how the teacher presents it. So they are taking the foundational skills piece of journeys, the top layer, and they're delving more deeply into it through whole group instruction. And so you won't see like a handout, like a piece of paper that the child will fill out. The teacher is doing it more of a whole group. If there wasn't COVID, it would be on the screen and then they would be, you know, going over the different sounds, for example, in a very explicit fashion. One thing we do know is bringing this program in during a COVID year has been difficult, so we may not be seeing it quite as much as we would like to see it this school year. But we did train in the fall on this, and we do have training planned more for the teachers as they execute it. But you're going to see it more as whole group. Now, if the child is struggling in, let's say, phonemic awareness, then during a wind block or a reading, like a small group reading, the teacher will pull tier two materials once as they acclimate to it to do a little more direct instruction. Does that answer your question?
[Van der Kloot]: Sharon, go ahead.
[Hays]: Thanks. So, um, maybe you're going to get into this later so feel free to say that if that's the case. One of the things that that particularly strikes me as I look at both of both of my sons learning to read and they are both, you know, fine readers they certainly don't have any issues. But I look at the, the sequence that journeys and I believe that I've been a part of some of these meetings before I brought this up the sequence in which the phonics is taught, and you know that the various. I mean, all different part, syllables, I don't really get into the syllable types. It doesn't really get much into syllable division. I mean, all of these things that even my first grader could be using right now. And my third grader really isn't even being taught those. And that's a huge, huge gap in our reading. And so I'm wondering what's kind of what the plan is for that. I know at some point there had been discussion of some of the teachers were going to go do an Orton Gillingham course, I think it was a free course. I don't know what happened with that or if I'm remembering that wrong. But even I was thinking to myself, even if they got that, it does not match at all with what's being taught through the journeys. The journeys program really is not at all good. with that piece. And I know we were trying to, it feels like we're building in all these other little chunks here and there, but it doesn't feel like a cohesive whole to me. And I'm wondering how that's going to be addressed. I mean, the Lexia is great, but the kids go on it and play. And I have yet to see that kind of brought back into the classroom in terms of being followed through with in the classroom. So that's, that is. But that's my main concern. I see a real lack of word attack skills on my kids' part when they come to any kind of a multi-syllable word in a book. Unless I've taught them myself with my own Wilson materials at home, they don't know.
[Chiesa]: Right, so I can answer a little bit of that and I think I will probably Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, did I?
[Hays]: Nope, nope, go ahead.
[Chiesa]: Okay, I can answer a little bit of that right now and then I will probably go into, I think I go into more depth a little bit later on it. So journeys is definitely not going to follow the OG or the Wilson reading because that's more of the targeted intervention. If we think about just ECRI for a moment though, ECRI is taking the breadth of Journey's foundational skills, like the overarching pieces, and pulling out the depth. So you're going to see the child engage more systematically in those lessons, in those multi-syllabic words, for example. They're gonna delve more deeply into those pieces. The good thing with ECRI, though, is that It isn't just specific to journeys it's it's specific to multiple programs and a big piece of it is that explicit instruction that we did feel was missing. In the journeys program with that with that. content you're speaking up, so I do agree, we needed. more with it, it systematically follows it, but as we adjust, we'll see it more. So I am going to, I think I do touch upon that a little bit later.
[Hays]: Okay. But just, can I just quickly say, I understand of delving deeper. The problem though, is that the journeys isn't getting to that. So the teachers can't delve in deeper into something that's not being taught in journeys. If the point of the ECRI is to delve deeper into what they're already teaching, I looked through the scope and sequence of the journeys program, and they don't even begin to touch on syllables and things until third grade. And I mean, I know this is an off year, so I'll third grade until they do it. But they haven't touched on it with my son yet in third grade either. So teachers can't delve into something that's deeper and something that's not being taught at all.
[Chiesa]: You're absolutely right. And Akari is going to push some of those examples you just mentioned forward in earlier grades.
[Hays]: Okay, and is there going to be material, I guess, so I'm sorry, I won't keep going because you may be getting into this, but I mean, I look at the journeys program, how can they use the journeys program and delve deeper into things that aren't even touched in the journeys program, they would need additional materials, additional books, a lot of additional stuff to supplement if they're going to be teaching things that the journeys program doesn't even touch on.
[Chiesa]: Yes, and ECRI will do some of that, but we definitely, the use of the decodable readers is a piece of it as well. But I think I may hit that a little bit later, but if I don't, I'm happy to circle back to that question. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for your feedback. I appreciate it.
[Van der Kloot]: Dr. Chiesa, I see that we have one more hand raised. I'm gonna ask Maureen if you could keep it pretty short, because we need to get to the end of the presentation and then reflect back. So Maureen, go ahead.
[8uC6Vq145lQ_SPEAKER_01]: Maureen, can you unmute yourself? It wouldn't let me unmute, but I've now unmuted. Okay, thank you. I'll make it quick. We are using Journeys, like a reading program, Journeys and Fountas and Pinnell that are not evidence-based, and they're banned in several states, most recently Colorado. A patch like ECRI isn't going to fix it. So is there like a movement to actually get an evidence-based core program so our kids will be taught to read in general ed?
[Chiesa]: Yes, I'm gonna go to that slide a little bit further in the presentation. Is it okay if I talk about secondary and jump back to that or would you guys prefer I go to that first?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yeah. Yeah, I would like to just request that Dr. Chiesa be allowed just to present the content of secondary as well. And then when she gets to what the next steps, I believe Ms. Ronayne, some of your questions and Ms. Hayes will be answered at that point in time. Okay, so Dr. Chiesa, if you could continue please.
[Chiesa]: Okay, thank you so much. So as we move from K through five to six through 12, we come to the ELA secondary curriculum resources. And next slide. So once again, we have this visual and the only thing that's different is that in six through 12, we do not have the reading for foundational skills anchor standard. In Medford six through 12, we approach the instruction through thematic units. So we do have all of those different standards in that visual I just shared. Sorry, I just heard an echo. And in the visual, you will see that we have these different units for ELA instruction six through 12. So if you have a seventh grader, they have a social commentary unit, literary analysis, literary heritage, cultural perspectives, art of voice, language of literature, and literary movement. Essentially, as you may have heard me say before, English instruction is no longer, my unit is no longer, you know, Esperanza Rising, right? They read that in sixth grade. The unit is not Esperanza Rising. The unit might be social commentary and we're going to infuse different books, both fictional and informational within that social commentary unit. So each unit is extremely comprehensive and it includes all of the standards. It includes the reading for informational, reading for fictional, language, writing, speaking, and listening. When we think about writing, for each unit, the student is engaging in several genres of writing. So if I'm in my Esperanza Rising, if I'm working with Esperanza Rising, and I'm within my social commentary unit, I'm going to be doing narrative writing. I'm going to be doing expository writing. I'm going to be doing analytical writing on more, you know, a smaller scale. And then we do have one specific focus, one writing genre, main one for each unit. So the six through 12 teachers follow a writing sequence where they know each unit they are using multiple genres of writing. but they will zone in on one particular genre to really emphasize as they move from unit to unit. These units are consistently changed, altered, updated as we grow as a department. Similarly for each unit, variety of reading genres will appear. You will have a novel, you will have excerpts, you will have fictional stories, informational texts, And we have really worked as a department very closely to make sure that we're infusing diverse voices. That's been a primary goal of the department over the last several years. Each educator operates with a specific pacing guide that includes each of these units and has a specific writing sequence. When we look at tier two for ELA, we have some options. when we look at intervention. And I know that this question arose at last week's meeting as well at the middle school level. So at the middle school level, they do have a wind block where they do a variety of different things. I know that the schools are cultivating school culture and community, and then the wind block will sometimes allow for intervention. So the wind block can be used for what I need at times within the middle school. At times, teachers can use the double block to do some of that tier two needs. And we do have Lexia power up very recently for our sixth and seventh grade students. So we're rolling that out. If you have a sixth or seventh grade child, they will have access very shortly to that if they're not already on. At the high school level, we also really value intervention for our English learners. And so we have literacy challenge classes, and we also have MCAS challenge classes. Those are minis, those are electives that meet two out of the six day cycle. There is a variety of different assessments and accountability pieces for grades six through 12. These include beginning of the year assessments, the Lexia Power Up assessment is going to be very similar to Lexia Core 5, where it takes gives a quick assessment and then allows you to place the student where their intervention needs are. We have unit assessments. We have mock MCAS assessments geared more at reducing test anxiety than anything else. And then of course, students take the ELA MCAS grades six through eight and grade 10. And we have advanced placement exams. We offer AP courses for English in grades 11 and 12 at the high school level. When we look at a very, very important goal for the English language arts department, it's equity and ELA. I wanted this to be its own slide to share with you that over the past several years, we've been adding in numerous novels, numerous excerpts, numerous texts by diverse authors. We've done a lot of PD on creating an inclusive classroom and we need to do more. So we're gonna continue to do more as we have time with our teachers and within our pacing guides that we all follow, We have made a concerted effort to make sure that it is visible, that the inclusivity is visible within our pacing guides. The addition of Newsella has been very helpful with that. Teachers just last week were trained with the identity wheel. They explored a variety of different resources in Newsella, including A Mile in Our Shoes collection, Black Students Matter collection. and the mirrors and windows collection. So we're constantly looking for resources to best support our students. When we look at goals and next steps, there's a lot of goals for English language arts, and these are a few of them. But if I really narrow it down, because we can't, obviously we have to have focus, building capacity in that science of reading and evidence-based instruction for our teachers is extremely important. I'm very grateful. to Ms. Galussi for all of her support with this, as well as Ms. Campbell and Ms. Champoli and Mrs. Bowen as well, for allowing me on March 2nd to have that time to work with Crafting Minds and beyond. We've done a lot of PG with that, and we certainly have more to do. Another goal is early literacy screener. Once we have the guidelines, we need to really zone in on what we want to select as the best choice for our students. Intervention is a huge piece. Beyond just our tier one journeys program or ECRI, we really need to look at what are we using for programs for the students where they need something else, something more personalized to support their reading goals. And we will continue to look for new resources to support ELA instruction, as well as focusing in on that equity and inclusivity for our K through five students. So when we look at our goals, we do know that some of the next steps need to be to educate the staff on the mass literacy guidelines. The Department of Education has provided us with a presentation to accomplish this, and we're hoping to also bring in somebody from DESE to present if they can. We are going to continue, of course, our literacy partnerships, which are just so valuable as we share in this endeavor. And we are going to continue and increase our PD on evidence-based instruction, something we have done in the past few years, but we'll continue to do more of. We need to review those early literacy guidelines once available. And as I already said, we need to recommend an early literacy screener to the school committee once we have those guidelines available and we've done a solid review of the different tools that are available to us. We also need to cultivate additional programs to support the science of reading, such as ECRI, such as Lexia Learning, which, as I mentioned, has that letters program now, which can be very valuable to students that are struggling in reading, such as NewZella and other programs and different trainings, which Ms. Hayes mentioned, and a variety of different resources that are available. So we need to continue to cultivate that and work together. to provide those additional programs so that we can personalize instruction to our students and continuing to incorporate equity and learn it in reading and continuing as a district to work on our literacy plan now that the math literacy guidelines have been outlined. This is a busy slide, but essentially this answers, this speaks to Ms. Ronayne's question a little bit more. So we do know that we want to update our literacy program, our core program, but I do think it's really important for us to realize that our core program needs to, as we update our core program, we're looking at, we need to continue to enhance the yellow cubes below. Our plan is to continue to build educator capacity on the science of reading and evidence-based instruction. Without that capacity, a pilot of a reading program is not going to be a solid because we need the teachers to continue to work. They've worked very hard. They're very knowledgeable, but we need them to better understand the mass literacy guidelines, which were just released. And we need them to foster more work with ECRI, given that this just rolled out during the COVID year. This spring, I am going to form and foster a reading program committee where we will begin to look at the different programs, reading tier one programs that are available as a whole. I certainly am knowledgeable of them, but I want to form and foster that committee so that we can begin to look at the different programs that best meet the needs of our Medford students. Working with the reading committee, we will review a variety of new programs We will then narrow it down to pilot two programs. And with school committee support, we will, once we do a proper pilot and we, you know, go through the sequencing for choice, we would then come to the school committee with a recommendation of a new reading program. So these arrows are the process, keeping in mind that as we work with that process, we are continuing to enhance and utilize all the different tools below, the Alexia Learning, the Early Literacy Screener, the ECRI, the Enhanced Core Reading Instruction, as well as NewZella. And the two orange bubbles on the top just are also very important because we need to make sure we're updating our district literacy plan, and also that we have a really clear understanding of the Early Literacy Screening Guidelines.
[Van der Kloot]: Dr. Kayes, can I interrupt for just one second? Could you be clear? You said that you would be recommending, at which point would you be recommending a new reading program date-wise? Is that in next spring?
[Chiesa]: So we have to keep in mind, so spring 2021, form and fostering a reading program committee, working with the reading committee, we're gonna review new programs and The pilot is gonna be a little bit tricky with the year of COVID. We've been pushed out a little bit. So including taking into account the fact that the teacher's capacity and the amount of PDs, it would be spring, by the end of, sorry, by the end of next spring, we would be selecting the two programs. We would be piloting 22 to 23 coming to the committee in 23 for the recommendation for the following school year. Our concern is that we know that we have other curriculum programs that are also in need and are in the midst of piloting. So we needed to take that into account. Dr. Vincent or Ms. Galusi, if I didn't explain that correctly, please feel free to let me know.
[Van der Kloot]: Would every school have a pilot program?
[Chiesa]: Yes. So when I piloted before, every school had the option to pilot a program. We didn't turn anybody away and we included all four schools. And what we were left with was a majority of teachers were implementing that new programs earlier than the official adoption because we made sure to include multiple teachers. It wasn't a small pilot. It was a big pilot that included K through five teachers. at all four schools.
[Van der Kloot]: Right, and the goal would be to adopt the program K to five. Yes. Okay, I mean, I certainly understand that as a parent who might have a, you know, second grader, they're counting and saying, oh, that's not gonna be made it, you know, for two years. Yes. I'm walking back a little bit and say, well, there'll be something tried in your school, but that's always the very hard part as our, as we look at rollouts for new curriculum.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Dr. Edward-Vinson? In terms of the timetable, I just want to present the parallel timetable because Dr. Chiesa alluded to it, but just to give some greater specificity, At the elementary level, the math screening team is reconvening in the late spring, and so the top two of the five programs that were being screened are going to be piloted in September of 21. So when we're thinking about a capacity and learning issue in September of this year, to different math curriculum, they're going to be piloted throughout the district. Teachers are going to need to receive that professional development. And once the piloting of the two programs is done, we're going to make a recommendation to the school committee, same time next year, so that in March of 22, the recommendation to the school committee would be to pick one of the two programs based on what was piloted district-wide. And so we would be essentially replicating that same exact process for ELA, but at least giving the the teachers an opportunity to be able to focus on piloting a curriculum at a time so that when they're implementing the new math curriculum, they'll be piloting the new literacy curriculum. if that helps with the timetable. Because to try to launch two totally different contents at the same exact time, you really need to give the educators an opportunity to be able to have that professional development, finish that process, and then restart it again with the next content area.
[Van der Kloot]: OK. Dr. Chiesa, do you want to continue on? Yes, thank you.
[Chiesa]: At the secondary level, we have quite a few goals as well. We need to continue to look at providing equity and inclusivity within our curriculum. We need to really continue to look at the digital resources. We have added some digital, of course, during COVID, we've added digital resources, but we found that a lot of the students are really able to access different texts a little bit more easily with our Sora OneDrive. So we wanna continue to develop that. Accessibility intervention is a huge one at the grade six through 12 level. We know that due to some funding, we weren't able to offer all of the interventions that we would obviously like to do at the middle school, but that doesn't mean that we stop. And we have certainly tried to be very creative in making sure that our tier two readers are supported. I'm thrilled that we were able to get Lexia Power Up. It was through some CARES Act funding and it was pretty recent. And I think it's gonna make a, I know it's gonna make a big difference for some of our struggling readers at the middle school level. And we need to continue to look at consistency. Consistency has been very, very important for our teachers because It then allows our special education and our EL teachers to follow our pacing in a different, in the way that works best for them. So we have really made sure that we're extremely consistent. In the past, when we've looked at our different units for six through 12, we've had to split them up. So because ELA is cyclical at six through 12, and you can hit different types of reading standards or writing standards, we were able to, maybe I would offer a social commentary unit and the other teacher was doing literary heritage. With the pandemic, we decided, and the reason for that was because then we could share texts. So I could take the texts I needed for social commentary, and then I could give them to the other teacher when that teacher was on social commentary. It's not as chronological, obviously, like history. But what we did find this year with the pandemic is being consistent and having everybody on that same unit at the same time has been really helpful to our students and to our EL and special education population as well. We've also been able to add in some different texts for our readers. We may be reading one book and there may be a graphic novel option for the student that maybe would prefer that medium. So we've been really focusing on that accessibility piece as well. coupled with the consistency. For secondary next steps and goals, that mass literacy guidelines, those are still important to our teachers, even at the secondary level. The focus is a little bit more obviously early literacy, but it's still really important for our secondary teachers to know that. So we're continuing with that. We're continuing with our literacy partnerships. I want to see those pushed more into secondary And certainly I want to continue with them at the elementary, but they're still very, very important for our readers, for our 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 readers. So I want to continue those partnerships and do more PD on literacy with our ELA teachers at the secondary level. Just very quickly, in the interest of time, I want to continue to cultivate those additional programs that support the students and also bring in that culturally responsive piece with Lexia learning to support the students and Nuzella as well as other resources as we continue on with our work. Continue to add in additional supports as needed. And again, the literacy plan is something that's not just K through five, it's K through 12. So continuing to work on a literacy plan that integrates these guidelines. This was the slide that popped up when we first began. So these are just some examples of the investment thanks to the committee's generosity as well as a lot of funding through the CARES Act as well, where we've been able to invest a lot of money in literacy. So I appreciate the support. I really appreciate the questions too. I really am gonna be looking for your support as we continue through budget season. This just gives you an example of some of the price points. So if we look at SORA OneDrive, it's about a $3,000 investment for informational texts and literacy. We do have replacement books that we often need. So those first three items are ones you pretty much see each year. These don't all come from the English Language Arts budget, but the Early Literacy Screener, for example, will definitely be a cost that will be appearing for this coming school year, 21-22. We think that will be around 5,000. We're using numbers based on this year to get there. The MobyDot Read is our digital library. That's about, that's $4 per student. Musela at the elementary level is approximately $10,000, at the middle school, 15, and at the high school, 10. It's based on the number of students, so it does vary, but those are the ballpark figures. Lexia Core 5 was very generously funded through the CARES Act this year for our elementary students, and most recently for our middle school students. You can see that that is a hefty expense. That's something I'm going to ask for, because I just met with teachers today for two and three, and it really is something that's being utilized and allows for a little bit more of that personalization. We have reading A to Z, which we're offering right now for our K through two students, and that is around 9,300. We've put a lot of money in PD for literacy. I want to do more next year. I want to continue the hill for literacy partnerships, Dr. Orkin, Dr. Illion, and that's just a few examples. So time is always an issue, but certainly budget is. So I'm asking for an investment in that because I think it's an investment in our teachers' capacity and of course in our students. And then we also have our ThinkCentral learning platform as well that we will need to continue until we settle on a very big ticket item with a new reading program. I hope I allowed enough time for questions.
[Van der Kloot]: Dr. Chiesa, thank you for your presentation. The first thing I'm going to ask you is for clarification, just so is the LexiaCorp V at 39,000, is that then would be a recurring yearly cost? And last year- Correct, that is correct. Last year it came out of the CARES money and- Yeah, go ahead.
[Chiesa]: This year, it came out of the CARES money. Last year, it was, yes, it was free through the company giving free resources. This school year, it came out of the CARES Act.
[Van der Kloot]: So they give it to you once for free because, and then they hope you get 40,000 plus.
[Chiesa]: We were using it for certain students K through two before COVID, and then they expanded it to include all students. We heard a lot of really good feedback, and so we did invest in it with the CARES Act funding.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay. You know, I'm not saying we don't need it, and we certainly want the best for our students. It's just in terms of planning and knowing that that's a cost, it's significant.
[Chiesa]: It is. It absolutely is.
[Galusi]: Yes.
[Van der Kloot]: I'd like to, first if, Suzanne?
[Galusi]: I just wanted to clarify one thing because I noticed we're like a little short on time and I just wanted to say, based on some of the questions that came up earlier, when Dr keys was mentioning equity and how we have that as part of the K to to supplement to the journeys program, I just wanted to say. In terms of the ECRI, just so people are clear, because I was part of that training as well. So, Hill for Literacy, when they do the training for us with ECRI, they provide the materials that the teachers need in order to help develop the phonological skills that we want to see in our students. Yes, you use the Journeys Reading Program, but the materials are also supplied to the teachers. They have exactly what they need in order to make sure that the program is being utilized. And I hope that makes sense, but it just seemed like by one of the questions that parents were a little unclear thinking that the materials weren't there for the teachers in order to teach the skills to the students and they are provided.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, I see Jenny has her hand raised. Jenny, unmute, please.
[Graham]: Thank you. I actually have several questions. When you were talking about the secondary level, you said something to the effect of not having enough resources and I use that term broadly to do what we would have needed to do at the middle school level. And I don't, I would like to encourage you to be unapologetically clear about what you need from the committee and the city in this upcoming budget, don't be unclear. If you need three teachers, please tell us that you need three teachers. If you need resources, like I remember distinctly that we hacked away a lot of online resources when we were making budget cuts last year. And I remember feeling like, the people telling us they didn't need those things felt pretty uncomfortable because they know they did. So I say all of this to say, We need you to tell us what you need to make sure that we don't have generations full of children who struggle to read. So whatever it is that you need, I wanna encourage you to be completely clear and like unabashedly transparent about what those things are so that we can never come back to you and say, you didn't tell us that you needed something. I want the city to and the school committee to make those prioritization decisions so that it's clear who is who is outlining what is needed and who is and isn't able to provide those things. So if that's resources at the middle school, if that's an assessment tool, if that's $40,000 for 2,000 kids, that is just not a lot of money in my mind in terms of what those tools can do if they are valuable and effective. I'm not afraid to tell the city that we need more money. And I would think that my colleagues would generally feel the same way. So please be clear and transparent about that with us so that we can advocate for the students because that's why we all do this job. So definitely tell us what you need. Yep, I really appreciate that. And then I guess the other question that I had, I definitely sort of understand and appreciate the the stacking and the like the transition that has to happen to roll out new curricula and that you at the elementary school level in particular can't do that across multiple subject matters in the same year. But I would ask and challenge you all to think about whether there's a way to accelerate the process. Perhaps the math committee has a front runner, and if they're being honest, they know who they're going to pick. And maybe we just have to roll with that to expedite the whole process. If it means we need to find a way to negotiate more professional development time, please tell us that too, so that if there is any way possible We can be in a position where we are rolling out a new literacy program before 2023 that we can do that like the kids who are going to be missed in the right now are also the kids. most dramatically impacted by the pandemic at that very young reader level. So between now and 2023 is like recovery time for all the things that they have missed and we've not been able to accomplish with them because of the pandemic. If we wait till 2023 to start using a curriculum that is suitable to our needs, like it's just gonna exacerbate that problem even more so. So if there's any creative out-of-the-box way for us to do all of this just a little bit faster, I think the kids, the littles in particular who are gonna be passed by while we wait for Medford to, and through no fault of really anybody on this phone call, to put in place curricula that are sound and evidence-based and competitive, I guess I'll say, across all subject matters. It is a huge lift what you all are doing at the elementary school level to really write the curriculum across lots of different topics. In regular times, this probably couldn't be moving fast enough for some, but the literacy piece of this is so important. that I am really concerned about the impacts of the kids who we are going to leave behind. So just think about that. And if there are ways the committee needs to prioritize and support those activities, I am all ears.
[Chiesa]: I appreciate that. I will say, you know, at the middle school level, I don't think anybody was happy to see the literacy specialists, you know, not those positions no longer be available. And I do think it is very, very important that we do our best to bring the literacy specialists back to the middle school for next year. And when I say the specialists, just the tier two. And I know that everybody fought really hard to try to keep that and it just couldn't happen this year. So I definitely think that's something we need to reconsider for the middle school as we move into a new budget year.
[Graham]: And I think I just heard that there was some good news from Washington on the relief bill today. So get out your wish lists.
[Van der Kloot]: I see Susie your hand is raised. You're muted.
[Lh9iUewuUkw_SPEAKER_15]: Well, I just wanted to shed a little more light on ECRI, because before coming to Medford, I used to be a literacy interventionist, and I actually have taught ECRI. And it is, it's really a great program. It is evidence based, and Well, I taught it in an interventionist role. The teachers do get everything they need. And it is the University of Oregon who worked with ECRI with the Hill, they have built these materials to go with a bunch of different publishers. So even if you were to look at a different publisher for a text, it's very well, you could be also using ECRI with that. because they introduce the different phonics elements and they build on it day to day. And it's like, it's just an add-on that goes with the text and it's very systematic. The teachers really, they continue to use it even after the research study was over. And it's a really great program. So I just wanted to say the skills that you, that are taught in ECRI are also taught with other programs.
[Van der Kloot]: Let's see. Thank you, Susie. Are there any other questions? Comments? Anybody want to add anything? Sharon Hayes, I see that you've got your hand raised.
[Hays]: Sharon, can you unmute? Hi, yes. I'm curious, and I'll try to be quicker this time. So, I mean, I know that Telfer Literacy and Crafting Minds are both fantastic, fantastic resources. I also know they're very strong in systematic, explicit phonics instruction in terms of their belief in that and promotion of that. I'm curious as we talk about looking for new programs, are we talking once again about a program similar to journeys in terms of a full box set, supposedly having everything included, or are we looking at a more, you know, an additional, something like a foundation, some kind of additional explicit phonics? And are we getting recommendations from KILL and Crafting Minds, since they would definitely be good resources in that direction?
[Van der Kloot]: Sorry, my video's off.
[Chiesa]: Yes, so those are all thoughts that I've definitely been sorry, let me just put my earpiece back on, that I've definitely been thinking about, you know, will there be one, will it be one holistic program? Will it be something for our K through two, three through five that has a crossover? Will it be something different? I think that that's something where the committee is really going to become important. We have been working very closely with Hill, developed really solid foundations with Hill and Dr. Orkin, and I hope very much, I'm already getting recommendations with them. Hill was actually the one that brought up ACRI last year to us. So it was through them that we really got to that systematic program. So we absolutely will be working with Hill. I'm hopeful that we will pull them in. I'm gonna try to see if they can come and work with our committee. I haven't asked them yet, but it's certainly, something that, you know, they are experts, they are leaders in the field. We've also worked really closely with Desi. Ms. Tarka has been wonderful in the humanities office to keep us moving along. So certainly, I think beyond just This school, we have to build those partnerships. We've seen so much come out of it already. So yes, we will be trying to engage them and to see if it's going to be a K through five holistic approach or something else is definitely something that's a big part of our conversations within the committee. Nothing has been decided on that.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, thank you. Dr. Chiesa, I'd like to just ask you one question. I know earlier this week, was it this week or last week, you had a meeting with the mayor. Yes, it was last week with the mayor and a group of parents who are very concerned about dyslexia in our system. Could you just tell us, just kind of sum up the sense of what we're doing and what their concerns are going forth. Do you think that the proposal is meeting the issues? Will our new pick be comprehensive for this dyslexic issue?
[Chiesa]: Our new pick will be comprehensive for sure. Don't think it will be taking tier three at it. You know, it won't have a Wilson component to it, right? That's its own program for some of our learners that need that. But certainly the special education and EL population are big voices when we select a program, 100%, excuse me. So all of our students, will be really important in picking the correct program for our children's needs, absolutely. I need to make sure it has a solid intervention program, a solid tier one, the best defense to tier two is a good tier one. So we wanna make sure that we're there and we wanna make sure that all of our students' voices and needs are heard, including EL and special ed.
[Van der Kloot]: And I, yeah.
[Graham]: Any other questions, Jenny? Um, that actually sorry, I forgot to ask this earlier because I was that was on my mind as well. But when we talk about the work that you're doing, it's certainly as you mentioned, like doing a doing a focused job in tier one should help us avoid, um, kids having to move through to tier two or even on to tier three, because we didn't do the right things for them sort of at those foundational like levels. So I guess there's sort of two thoughts that I have as it relates to that one is. We did put on the list of standing reports for the school committee. a request that when assessments are given, we receive the aggregated results in some fashion. And I know we didn't get that at all this year, but I think it is important for the committee to have a pulse of like, where are those assessments coming in on any given assessment? I think you do three assessments a year. So I would want to be able to, I just wanted to bring that to your attention so that it's clear that that is on the list of approved reports, like under the reporting policy that we just passed. And if there's an opportunity, I don't know when the right time is to catch the committee up on those reports for this year, that would be great. But then- Okay, and I worked really closely with, sorry. Oh, sorry, go ahead.
[Chiesa]: No, I was just going to say, I want to make sure that Ms. Glucy, Ms. Campbell, and Ms. Ciampoli get a lot of credit for that as well, because we do work as a team to do that. So we will definitely look at the best way to report that to you. Thank you for bringing it.
[Graham]: Yeah. And then I guess, Superintendent, the other thing that comes to mind is if we fixed our tier one opportunity tomorrow, there's still a pipeline of kids that that doesn't help. So, you know, Joan, I know you're on the phone, but I think the other question that lots of parents have, particularly those who are very vocal about the struggles their kids have had is like, they're still advocating and fighting for those things to happen because they're the right things to do. But by and large, like those opportunities have, are not gonna impact or affect their children, right? So where their children are sort of squarely onto meeting additional intervention and I know that's sort of part of not that's not like a tier one curriculum item but I would like to know sort of what we need to be planning for As we think about tier two and tier three intervention around literacy in the upcoming years, you know, just as a sort of a general rule, but also sort of at the hands of the pandemic what what do we need to be thinking and planning for. to address any sort of you know learning loss that's really happening in real time. So I don't know if that's like another curriculum subcommittee meeting or if that is something you all can address during the budget but I feel like the answer is probably like if there's both sides of that coin but I just want to make sure that we are planning for those kids who these these changes at the at the early elementary level that it's not going to to impact them so that we can get them on a path that is more stable for them as well.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I can just say yes to what you said. The children right now, we know that teaching under these conditions, a lot has happened from social emotional learning concerns to gaps that have taken place. So we're already thinking about what are the modifications that need to be made? How can we find ways to creatively close the gaps What are the power standards that are going to be expected of us either being announced this year or for next year? So we are definitely in the beginning phases of trying to map out what that's going to look like. It's definitely on our radar. And just as we receive more information and think about where we are, where Medford is at, we will definitely be able to present to the committee, you know, what our proposals would be, but it definitely is on our radar. I want you to know that and, you know, the listening audience to know that we're very aware of that. And we know that we're not alone, but we're going to get through it. We will come up with a plan and we will, you know, stick to that plan and work it to meet the needs of our students here in Medford.
[Van der Kloot]: All right. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or comments? If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn? Second.
[Graham]: Okay. Jenny, could you call the roll, please? Sure. Member Graham? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. member of Vandercliff? Yes.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay. Thank you all so very much. Dr. Chiesa.
[Chiesa]: Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.
[Van der Kloot]: Yep. I think we're on at 545 again. Is that correct?
[Edouard-Vincent]: That is correct.
[Van der Kloot]: And Peter, is Peter still on?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, he is.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay. Peter, I need to talk to you for a second. So everybody else goodbye. Thank you. Bye bye. Hold on one second, because we are still recording. So just give me one minute.
[Lh9iUewuUkw_SPEAKER_15]: And we are still recording.
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