WINCHESTER – Last year, a report surfaced that alleged Winchester students struggled to read. In response, the district, through Superintendent Dr. Frank Hackett, reached out to the Collaborative for Educational Services, a Northampton-based non-profit, to pull back the curtain and do a deep dive into the district’s practices. Two members of the group appeared at a recent School Committee meeting to outline the report.
The Collaborative published a 111-page report that the superintendent sent out to the public two weeks ago. In it, they surveyed and held listening sessions with parents, teachers and specialists to determine the issues plaguing Winchester’s youngest readers.
Dr. Hackett called the report the “beginning of a process.” He acknowledged some people thought the Collaborative would be biased and not tell the full truth, but after reading their report he admitted it was a “difficult read, especially for myself as the superintendent.”
He noted how this report would likely lead to more questions and potentially more studies, but said he didn’t want to place the School Committee in a study circle that doesn’t lead to any real, meaningful action.
“We need to be reflective on what’s in there and be reflective on the next steps,” the superintendent acknowledged.
Tom Hopcroft, School Committee vice-chair but acting as interim chair while chair Karen Bolognese participated via video conference, started off by sharing his appreciation to teachers and parents for participating in the report through the various surveys and listening sessions.
“This document is the best, unvarnished version of the truth,” Hopcroft stated.
The report
“We sit in the cheap seats,” one of the members of the Collaborative said at the outset. “Our work is hard but not as hard as teaching kids to read.”
The report looked at four questions: what is the districts approach to literacy? How is the elementary literacy program implemented and enacted? What are teachers’ experiences with the elementary literacy program? What are parents’ and caregivers’ experiences with the elementary literacy program?
The two Collaborative members said they surveyed 97 percent of general education teachers in the elementary schools, 100 percent of literacy coaches and specialists and approximately 37 percent of parents of elementary school- and middle school-aged children.
They hosted listening sessions with 138 educators, 15 literacy coaches/specialists, 10 special education teachers, and 81 parents.
The team broke up the findings into four categories: literacy curriculum and curricular support, literacy professional development and teacher learning, communication and culture around literacy, and literacy assessment and tiers of support for students.
Literacy curriculum and curricular supports
Winchester uses the Massachusetts ELA Standards as its literacy program. These standards are reviewed each year and prioritize a color-coded system. Green tells the students’ incoming teacher they mastered standards on a deep level; yellow tells the students’ incoming teacher most mastered the standards on a deep level; and red tells the students’ incoming teacher most did not master the standards on a deep level.
The district’s literacy leaders prioritize teacher autonomy and mandate the workshop model of literacy instruction that promotes literacy development through authentic, meaningful activities that emphasize choice and engagement with rich texts.
The literacy block addresses five components: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. The district provides a list of recommended resources, but teachers are encouraged to use their own judgment to decide which are best for which component.
The issues concern the lack of communication. According to the report, there is a wide variability of how the literacy block is operationalized. Different schools may use different curriculum or the same school may use different curriculum in different classrooms.
The main curriculum used is UFLI in grades K-3 and Units of Study in Reading in grades 3-5.
The report also notes how Winchester generally exceeds the state-mandate minimum instructional time for literacy, though there is a variation within each grade. For instance, some grades may spend upwards of 15 hours per week while others spend closer to 10 hours per week.
The Collaborative said that in speaking with teachers, they heard many say they experienced ineffective guidance and support for elementary literacy. A survey showed 86 percent as dissatisfied with guidance to help them choose the right literacy, 60 percent as not satisfied with literacy guidance and 68 percent said the district doesn’t effectively inform them of the full range of literacy resources.
To put it into perspective, teachers said they are told they have freedom to choose, but said it’s a false freedom. If I don’t have the ability to get support, they said, to get resources, then I don’t really have a choice.
100 percent of teacher and parent listening sessions included curricular variability as a chief concern. According to the teachers surveyed, they said when they move from teaching students one year to another, there’s nowhere to start from. It’s like having to reinvent the wheel every time.
From a parent’s perspective, they said they really hope to not end up with the teacher who is teaching Units of Study because then they’ll have to hire a tutor, unless they have kids who just naturally get it. It’s really a matter of luck, they said.
Therefore, teachers said they desire a more comprehensive and cohesive program through mix of autonomy and consistency.
Literacy professional development and teacher learning
The report notes how professional development is largely led by internal staff and generally gives teachers a choice in professional development experiences, with two mandatory trainings included: DIBELS (K-3) and EL Teacher: Teaching Reading in the Workshop Model (K-5).
The report states how existing structures are not meeting teachers’ needs. None of the specialists surveyed said the district’s support is effective at helping them deepen or improve their own practices. 81 percent of teachers rate professional development as ineffective.
Although many don’t see the value in professional development, the teachers surveyed believe in their own self-worth and offered a high sense of their own abilities.
Communication and culture around literacy
The district, according to the report, makes a range of materials and information available to teachers and families through the website, an annual curriculum night and parent-teachers conferences, plus sending to teachers a DIBELS letter for students who don’t meet certain benchmarks along with e-mails from literacy leaders and meetings with literacy coordinators.
However, both teachers and parents said they experience ineffective communication around literacy with 60 percent of parents dissatisfied with communication about elementary literacy from the district. For teachers, many expressed confusion regarding whether or not certain materials were prohibited, with almost one-third saying they were certain some were prohibited, were certain none were prohibited and were unsure either way.
Teachers said literacy leadership lacks respect, collaboration and trust. 88 percent of teachers said they were afraid to ask questions or share disagreements with district leaders. On the flip side, teachers and parents, according to the report, seem to have a solid relationship, with parents strongly valuing and respecting the job teachers do. Teachers also strongly value and respect each other.
Literacy assessment and tiers of support for students
The report wasn’t all bad news. Winchester continues to meet state requirements related to early literacy screening. It uses its own Early Reading Support Program to identify and support struggling readers. Literacy rates are actually high and have been for the past 15 years, according to the report (until COVID-19, which affected every community).
The town outperforms 95 percent of Massachusetts communities when it comes to MCAS ELA (English Language Arts), but falls in the middle of the pack when judged with more comparable communities like Arlington, Needham, Natick, and Hingham.
However, as one member of the Collaborative pointed out, “MCAS isn’t the be all and end all” when it comes to identifying ELA progress and success.
Even as Winchester performs solidly in state testing, teachers still said they need more support in administering assessments. Parents, meanwhile, want more transparency, especially as it relates to DIBELS scores (to know if their child is struggling). They said they need to ask for it in writing while other communities offer up those scores voluntarily.
This leads to what the report called widespread concerns with identifying and supporting struggling students, especially as it relates to availability of data and mechanisms by which students are identified and the effectiveness of the support model.
When it comes to parental satisfaction of the literacy support model, only 40 percent surveyed called it effective. 33 percent said the models were not effective.
Feedback
Before the Collaborative outlined the report, three parents spoke up about the process. Anthea Brady, a mother of a rising second grade student – and also a member of the Select Board – asked who’s responsible and who’s accountable for the issues plaguing Winchester’s elementary schools.
“I hope we’re ready for change,” she said.
Sarah Gannon, who worked in Winchester for 18 years in literacy, said she met with members of the district about this very issue four years ago, but no one ever followed up. She said she also sent a letter to the School Committee, but felt their response was underwhelming.
She said the process started with a few individuals sharing concerns and then morphed into a situation where more than 70 families became involved.
Nora Cooney thanked the district for undergoing the study and thanked the families for “ringing the bell.” She added her shock to how “overwhelming” the report was, adding how she was heartbroken for the teachers over the perceived lack of support.
Cooney said the district wasn’t spending enough and teachers shouldn’t have to create curriculum on their own. She asked parents to help teachers receive more assistance.
