Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 6/2/2022
EAST LONGMEADOW – The East Longmeadow Public Schools (ELPS) School Committee voted unanimously on May 23 to accept new elementary-level curriculum programs for math and literacy.
Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Heather Brown explained to the committee the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) had made two competitive grants available. The Accelerating Literacy grant is meant to equip schools with high-quality core instructional materials. The district must receive the materials by June 30 to be eligible for the $195,650 in grant funding.
The Accelerating Mathematics grant works slightly differently. DESE provides a list of eligible programs. Once the district chooses the materials and receives quotes, DESE purchases them for the district. The math materials and licenses that the district will order are worth around $100,000.
“It’s not often that DESE offers hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Brown said.
The investigation and analysis of the literacy curriculum programs was completed over five months, beginning in January.
The team chose the Wit and Wisdom program from Great Minds. In Grades K-3, the program will be supplemented with Fundations.
Brown explained the new curricula would benefit students because, “ensuring materials’ quality and alignment to standards costs less, builds more human capacity and scales more easily than many other ‘interventions’ in education.”
Another benefit of using high-quality materials is more equitable access and outcomes. Brown said the new curricula will help to fulfill the district equity audit’s goal of increasing honors and advanced placement success among “identified subgroups.” The use of evidence-based instruction will also fulfill the state’s Mass Literacy initiative and dyslexia guidelines.
While 40 percent of children learn to read “relatively easy,” Brown said the remaining 60 percent of students require a structured literacy approach, with explicit, systematic instruction and repetition.
She said teachers also benefit from high-quality materials and shared that teachers spend up to 12 hours each week searching for or creating instructional resources, often using Google and Pinterest for materials.
For math curriculum, Illustrative Math was chosen. The program is already in use for Grades 6-8, while the high school uses McGraw Hill’s Reveal program, as Illustrative Math isn’t made for that age group. Brown said Illustrative Math was piloted with some students this year and may not be completely new in the 2022-2023 school year.
The School Committee voted unanimously to adopt the curriculum programs.
Fonseca Honored
School Committee Vice Chair William Fonseca will be leaving the committee when his term ends in June. He received a send-off from the committee and state Reps. Jake Oliveira and Brain Ashe, who presented him with an official citation. Oliveira said of Fonseca, who has been on the committee for 17 years, “Bill provided that stability.” Ashe said Fonseca has always fought for education.
The committee also honored Executive Secretary Kathy Celetti and the student representative, both of whom are also leaving the committee.