Episode Details

Happy Friday!

Thank you for all you have done this week to help us reach our district goals. We should have an update on our on-level reading percentage by next Tuesday’s board meeting to accompany the other data we are tracking and I look forward to sharing that with everyone soon.

As we learn more about the LEARNS plan, it is apparent that our grade-level reading will be a very important part of our work for years to come; so, I will get right to the subject at hand for this week’s Wrap-up.

Arkansas LEARNS

Secretary Oliva zoomed with superintendents this morning to provide us with more information about the details of the Governor’s plan and I will share what he told us in this Wrap-up. He did explain that there are things he still does not know as more questions get asked but added that he and the department will work with school districts to make sure that this plan is successful.

Before starting, he did warn us that there are still many nuances and uncertainties about this plan because it is not finished and will take multiple years to implement.

* Early Childhood Education

The major element of this is to relocate the Division of Early Childhood Education from DHS to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. A new Office of Early Childhood at DESE will oversee all of the Pre-K programs, including privately run systems, to ensure Kindergarten readiness. There will be no mandatory Pre-K but the state will create a dashboard for parents to inform them of effective early childhood education centers near their homes and provide information related to costs, accountability, curriculum, student-teacher ratios, etc. They will also work with faith-based, independent, and private programs to give guidance and assistance on these items of educational interest and establish ways to close gaps in service in areas that do not have high-quality early childhood.

Secretary Oliva pointed out that we know that students who come to Kindergarten without being Kindergarten ready tend to stay behind grade-level reading standards. DESE will define Kindergarten readiness and that will be the mission of the Office of Early Childhood

* Early Literacy

The big question related to early literacy was the language related to the retention of those students who were not at grade-level reading ability by the Third Grade. Secretary Oliva was clear that this is not a mandatory retention policy. He went on to explain that students that went on to Fourth Grade and were not on grade level will be given a safety net in later grades so as not to fall further behind. He used examples such as extended reading blocks of time, being placed with the highest quality teachers, and focused RTI. Furthermore, parents will be provided with funds to pay for additional tutoring if their child is not able to read at grade level.

DESE will develop a unified progress monitoring system for schools and the department to use and accurately measure students’ reading levels. This is encouraging because we have a concern here in our district about being accurate with our measurements to track our progress. Schools not meeting the level of expectation will be provided with reading coaches from DESE to improve reading instruction.

Secretary Oliva stated his belief that 90 to 100 percent of our Third Graders should be on level when the system is put into place over the next couple of years. There is no doubt that we will see a renewed focus on our K through 3 literacy instruction with the Science of Reading establishing all of our teaching practices. DESE will be contracting with an outside agency to independently evaluate what their department and our schools are doing to reach this goal.

There is a similar plan being built around numeracy, as well.

* Career Readiness