We want our staff focusing on instruction and the skill level of the students they are working with, not spending hours trying to find resources to use. My job is to make sure they have the resources and the professional development skills they need to focus on the kids.”

Hastings School District Director of Teaching and Learning Rachel Larson

Hastings School District Director of Teaching and Learning Rachel Larson spoke before the Hastings School Board at the June 28 meeting concerning the Read Well Plan or local literacy plan. The Read Well Plan is a brief overview of what staff and faculty have done during the past school year and how students are provided with appropriate, research-based instruction. As stated in Minnesota Statute 120B.12, “A school district must adopt a local literacy plan to have every child reading at or above grade level no later than the end of grade three. A local literacy plan must include a process to assess students’ level of reading proficiency, notify and involve parents, intervene with students who are not reading at or above grade level, and identify and meet staff development needs. The district must post its literacy plan on the official school district website.”

Larson began, “A big part of what we do with this is not really visible in here in detailed data but it’s how we develop plans for students who are not reading at grade level. There is incredible work happening behind the scenes in the classroom within tiered interventions and supporting unique needs of learners. Being a part of the World’s Best Workforce, we make sure that the committee work we do from school improvement planning to building leadership teams to the elementary literacy leadership team to the district literacy leadership team that we’re aligning our efforts and that we’re having conversations across different groups of families.”

Larson adds that they seek out family input for those students receiving intervention services and seek input through the Curriculum Advisory Council. The first section began with pre-K3 literacy goals. During the COVID pandemic, partnering with Early Childhood Pre-K and kindergarten was challenging so as restrictions began to be lifted, they could make sure that the preparation and support is available for the students so kindergarteners can feel prepared on their first day of school and have the baseline skills they need to be successful. They kept the District Literacy Goal in alignment with the Minnesota Legislature’s World’s Best Workforce goal because this is part of a public report, and they didn’t want to confuse people with multiple goals. Larson shared that they further zone in on the goal at the consecutive levels from district level to student level. 

Larson stated, “The goal is that we will have an increase to 56 percent in 2023 of those meeting or exceeding expectations on the MCA reading assessment from 49.4 percent in 2022.” She added that those results will be embargoed by the state through August and can’t be shared until late August or the next school year.

Larson gave an overview of the assessment measurements stating that they are required to screen all students and what their literacy levels are to further develop plan for those who may not be at grade level. Fastbridge is the assessment tool that is used that uses both criterion-referenced and norm-referenced data, while using aReading and earlyReading. aReading provides a useful estimate of broad reading achievement from kindergarten through 12th grade and is substantially similar to many state-wide, standardized assessments. earlyReading is a staff administered assessment designed to gauge emergent readers’ phonological and phonemic awareness along with their knowledge of letter sounds. Fastbridge also progress monitors for students’ individual goals depending on the specificity of the need.  While assessment results shouldn’t be compared, they do give an overall picture of a student’s literacy level.  The benchmark assessment system is also used and that differs from the Fastbridge and MCA assessments in that is delivered on paper and is one-on-one with the teacher.

Larson shared, “One of our concerns is we don’t have students taking assessments on computers outside the MCA and the Fastbridge so it’s not a mode of testing that they are used to and so we’re looking at what that does to their ability to feel confident and prepared to do it.” She continued that they notice changes in how students with their developing fine motor skills may have to run a mouse or use an iPad and added that the majority of the assessments are online so using paper isn’t a choice unless they have modifications.

“That is something that we balance to make sure we have online and paper,” she informed. “The Benchmark reading assessment tells us the reading levels of our students and how their comprehension and phonics development is progressing,” Larson stated. She then described the kindergarten readiness assessment checklist, that is given so they know what level the student is at when they enter kindergarten. Also included is a past and phonics screener, given at the beginning of the year, to obtain information, such as potential dyslexia attributes and convergence disorder. Diagnostic measures are also used to focus further on a skill area and the development and skill of the learner.

Communication between parents and teachers is provided to families by classroom teachers through newsletters, bulletins, conferences, etc. When students are identified for intervention, parental approval is required, and the amount of parental involvement depends on the level of intervention the student requires.

Larson described, “When I came into the district in 2021, what I heard most was, ‘help with our elementary literacy.’ Over the past eight years, the pieces that were put into play in the curriculum review that happened was at a time of transition when one director was leaving, another one was coming on and people doing the best they can to make sure everything transitions. But things just didn’t go as seamlessly as possible so what was discovered was that staff were working incredibly hard but having to focus on some of the wrong things. We want our staff focusing on instruction and the skill level of the students they are working with, not spending hours trying to find resources to use. My job is to make sure they have the resources and the professional development skills they need to focus on the kids.”

She further mentioned that the resources on hand weren’t always flexible and keeping up with the needs as evidence-based practice changed. Larson stated that as they are in year two of curriculum review, they will be bringing recommendations and resources to be purchased to the school board but there is a slight hold as they are making sure that their recommendations align with the MDE’s current standards.

The report highlights the five pillars of literacy which are, interactive read aloud, Reader’s workshop, writer’s workshop, word study and shared reading. Larson explained that 150 minutes were set aside each day for literacy and writing, and included grammar, phonics, and word study.

The Multiple Tiered Systems of Support framework for Hastings Public Schools showcases a tiered response system for intervention. While the classroom teacher monitors the learning of the student, the intensity and frequency will increase as the needs of the student increases. With the Intervention program recently reviewed, the changes for that program will begin to be implemented this year. Larson shared that she is excited to share the growth in those areas when more guidance is given by MDE in conjunction with the Read Act at a future date.

As Larson further described the resources used in each grade level, she commented, “We are continuing to look at narrowing those resources because those are a lot of different resources to use, and we need to make sure that we have specificity of skill focus for our intervention programming.”

Larson informed the school board that they are starting curriculum review this August for multi-language learners in grades K-12 in the programming of the MLL department. “The past few years, MDE has supported districts in recognizing and identifying and supporting students that may have attributes of dyslexia and/or convergence disorder and we have been following MDE’s recommendations. So, for every student that may be reading below grade level teachers give them a dyslexia screener that doesn’t get communicated with parents unless there are red flags, but it is given to every student in the classroom.” She explains that the teacher goes through a checklist to see if there are some attributes that need further exploration or discussion as educators cannot diagnose those disorders but can recommend resources and provide options for instruction.

In the last two years, professional development for teachers was focused very specifically on instructional techniques for teachers with interactive read-alouds, phonemic awareness and phonics, and small group guided reading instruction, that can be most utilized by the teachers due to the smaller size and similar skill set of the group.

Then she showcased the Elementary Literacy Leadership Team that meets together throughout the year to further develop and refine the literacy instructional skills of the staff. She added that this year staff have the choice to take two days of scheduled professional development from the school year and use those days during the summer because the learning, concentration, and ability to collaborate is easier with a lighter workload and a large percentage of staff are choosing this option.

As Larson explained the data from the Fastbridge earlyReading data, she shared that while some assessment proficiency percentages may not reflect it, other classroom scales are indicating that students are comprehending and gaining literacy skills that may not show on assessments.

Director Jessica Dressely asked Larson what they can do as a school board to help to make sure that every student is reading at grade level by the end of the school year. Larson expressed her thanks for the question and answered, “Resources,” while sharing that educators shouldn’t have to struggle to create resources for the classroom. She further mentioned the significance of the books that the Hastings School Board helped to purchase to replace outdated books in classroom libraries for individual reading levels.

“One piece that we’re trying to build in is instructional coaching. We have a multi-tiered systems of support process but one of the things that does differentiate us from other districts is because we don’t have Q Comp funds, we’re trying to find ways to help provide in-classroom support with teachers so that they don’t have to learn something and then do it on their own and try to figure it out and not get support.”

She hopes to have a conversation surrounding resources that are needed to support the staff with expectations of increasing grade level literacy. “It is support in the classroom and that is something that does delineate us from other districts. I think it’s a disservice to our staff to not have some support.” She said that with that support it would give teachers the opportunity to focus on student instruction.

Citing Larson’s comment that younger students may not perform as well for online assessments, Director Carrie Tate asked Larson if there are any other factors on the online assessments that may not affect the true literacy skills of the students.

 Rachel Larson described that it’s been a tough switch when staff have had to switch from teaching curriculum to teaching standards and she added that the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments have become increasingly more complex and focused on the standards and not the overall discipline skill.