“Enhanced” Literacy & Math Plan Pitched

Top public school administrators have have drafted an ​“enhanced literacy and math plan” in response to months of public outcry from teachers, students, and parents about a learning crisis in city classrooms.

New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) officials detailed that draft plan Tuesday night during the latest regular Board of Education meeting, which was held online via Zoom.

The plan presentation came several months after the NHPS released preliminary reading assessment data that showed that up to 84 percent of third-graders were reading below grade level. Of about 8,000 students tested during the 2021 – 22 school year, 23 percent were on grade in ELA (English Language Arts), and 12 percent were on grade level in math.

The Board of Education, alders, clergy, and other community members dubbed the scores a ​“crisis,” and demanded new plans to address the ​“emergency.” At the center of that debate has also been a larger controversy about how NHPS teaches students to read. Claiming that the old way of teaching doesn’t need to be overhauled, officials, including the superintendent and several board members, have previously pushed back against a new state requirement that all schools move from​“balanced” to more phonics-based​“structured” literacy in the face of new brain research on how kids learn to read.

In response to the scores and community input, school leaders presented the Board of Education with a draft of a reading and math plan at Tuesday’s full board meeting. 

The plan details increased opportunities for professional development for educators, a shift from various reading programs to one district-wide program, and improved training in the single-reading program for literacy coaches, K‑3 teachers, and paraprofessionals. 

Supervisors of Literacy and Mathematics Lynn Brantley and Monica Joyner joined Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Leadership Keisha Redd-Hannans to give the presentation to the Board. (View the presentation here.)

In addition to Tuesday’s presentation to the full board and the teaching and learning committee last week, the district also plans to host four community meetings over the coming week to get feedback from the public and tonight to the Board of Alders Education Committee. 

Redd-Hannans said the enhanced plan will help not only students but the district’s educators. 

“We do not see a problem; we see an opportunity. An opportunity to help our students realize their full potential. An opportunity to enhance teaching and learning for all of our students across the entire district. And an opportunity to help our staff members grow professionally to be the best that they can be,” she said. 

The improvement plans are focused on what changes the district rather than its students must make, Redd-Hannans highlighted. 

The new reading plan includes five key points: a comprehensive core program, systems of assessment for preK-12 that include progress monitoring, professional development (PD), partnerships with parents, and an intervention plan that is still to be determined. 

The comprehensive core program will include the seven framework components written into the Right to Read bill which are: oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, letter name fluency, and reading comprehension. 

“Bringing a comprehensive core program forward will align us again,” Brantley said. 

Progress monitoring will be arranged every seven weeks to see where students fall and prepare small group instruction to address their growth needs. 

The district hosted its first PD on phonemic awareness and oral language with educators on Sept 13. The next PD will be on the district’s sole phonics program Fundations in November. Previously it used two phonics programs, Fundations and Words Their Way, which differed for each school. 

“Our curriculum, the curriculum from the reading department, has become fractionated, and there’s varied programs being used across the district,” Brantley said. 

For the new math plan, leaders sought input from teachers and coaches to evaluate the effectiveness of methods. 

The high school math curriculum was rewritten this summer which includes: Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and Pre-Calculus. The revised curriculum was written with strategies to aid Special Education (SPED) and Multilingual Learners (ML).

The new plan also introduced K‑5 monthly pacing guides and pre made ​“open and teach” morning meeting guides for educators to provide more structure to introducing new math topics. The district will next work on rewriting the 6 – 8th grade math curriculum. 

The district is in its second year of adopting iReady for K‑5 and its first year of adopting enVisions for high school. It is currently piloting the two for middle school classrooms.

The district is planning to introduce family STEM nights not just in school buildings but throughout the community, Joyner said. 

“We’re not trying to get our parents to become educators and take over our jobs in that sense. What we’re trying to do is get a level of support from parents so that they help, to get their children to persevere through challenges,” Joyner said. 

Future partnerships will be with community centers, churches, libraries, barber shops, and pediatrician offices, Joyner said.

“We want to flood the community with math learning,” she said. ​“There are so many different ways that math is relevant and important but our children don’t know that because it’s often taken outside the four walls of a classroom.” 

In reaction to the presentation Mayor Justin Elicker suggested the district look into expanding instruction time through nonprofit partnerships and optional extended school hours for students to catch up in literacy and math instruction. 

Board secretary Edward Joyner reminded the board that student attendance and disruptive behaviors must be improved in addition to the district’s curriculum.