Mecklenburg schools make changes to address reading instruction … – SoVaNOW

Mecklenburg County schools are preparing to implement two Youngkin administration programs that address reading instruction and absenteeism in Virginia schools.

At Monday’s meeting of the Mecklenburg County School Board, Paige Lacks, the school division’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, spoke at length about plans to prepare teachers for the Virginia Literacy Act, which aims to change how students learn to read, and All In Virginia, Youngkin’s signature initiative to address a post-pandemic surge in student absenteeism across Virginia and the nation.

Both programs are set to go into effect before the start of the 2024-25 school year.

Lacks described what work was being done to ready Mecklenburg County Public Schools teaching staff and school administrators for these new programs.

Lacks said teachers will need professional development to learn the Literacy Act’s new approach to teaching reading. Pacing guides that teachers use to develop lesson plans will be rewritten under the Virginia Literacy Act, and it will likely require the purchase of new textbooks approved by the Virginia Department of Education.

Under the All In Virginia program, school divisions will focus on programs that combat chronic absenteeism and offer tutoring support to help students struggling with pandemic-related learning loss.

Youngkin launched the “All In VA” campaign in September, and with it comes $418 million in state funding for local school divisions to implement tutoring and literacy programs and carry out efforts to address chronic absenteeism.

Mecklenburg County’s share of that money is a little over $1.7 million. Lacks said VDOE has approved the school division’s plan for spending those funds. MCPS will spend 40 percent on tutoring programs, 30 percent on curriculum changes that align with the Virginia Literacy Act, and the remaining 30 percent on chronic absenteeism.

VDOE’s approval of the school division’s spending plan was a mandatory first step before funds could be spent, Lacks told School Board trustees Monday.

The Virginia Literacy Act represents a fundamental shift in the way reading will be taught in Virginia to students in grades K-5. Lacks said the specific program is called EBLI — Evidence Based Literacy Instruction — and school divisions across Virginia are required to implement it by the 2024-25 school year.

Lacks said EBLI is an instructional approach based on the science of reading and focuses on how students learn to read. It calls for teachers to apply seven key concepts: crucial reading, phonemic awareness (the ability to translate what a student hears into spoken word), phonics (correlating sounds with letters, fluency), the ability to read a text accurately, quickly and with expression, vocabulary, comprehension, word recognition, and written expression.

She said as MCPS readies teaching staff to implement this shift in how reading is taught, teachers are being offered the opportunity to receive advanced training known as LETRS. It stands for Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling. It is a course of study that teaches the how, what, and why behind EBLI.

Lacks said officials with a consortium group the school division is working with to implement these instructional changes has advised her that MCPS is ahead of many other schools in terms of readiness to begin teaching under the new EBLI standards.

Once the EBLI program is implemented, elementary school students will be given a new screening assessment at the start of the school year to identify which are in need of reading intervention. The assessments will also specify the types of deficiencies to be addressed. Teachers will then have to develop an individual literacy plan for those students and the students will work with a reading specialist.

Trustee Gavin Honeycutt expressed concern that this new teaching method comes with a substantial amount of additional work for the teaching staff. “We have to let our teachers teach,” he said.

Lacks agreed but said “we have to do what is tasked upon us. We want to support them as best we can. We’re in this together.”

She voiced her belief that the MCPS teachers are up to the task, and that the administration will do everything it can to lessen potential burdens and help county teachers.

Wanda Bailey said she was pleased to see the foundational training that MCPS is implementing to ready the teachers for the new program. “In every state that has gone through the process of literacy [education restructuring], the first piece is always training and that translates hopefully into better instruction and children receiving the benefit of that training,” said Bailey.

Superintendent of Schools Scott Worner Scott summarized the work Lacks and her staff have undertaken, saying, “What you saw was a synthesis of hundreds of hours of VDOE information. Our [school] calendar next year will have to reflect additional hours of in-service training [for teachers] instead of taking them after school when they are tired. They will need full professional development days.”

He assured the board that the additional training days would not cause teachers to work more than the 200 calendar days set out on their contracts. Currently students attend school for 180 days.

Bailey noted that immediately after MCPS begins implementing EBLI, the school division will then have to adjust its math program to align with the new math standards of learning that VDOE has adopted.

No discussion about the new math SOL took place during Monday night’s meeting, aside from Lacks telling trustees that she and teachers were reviewing textbooks to find ones that align with the standards adopted by the VDOE on August 31.

In other business, MCPS Exceptional Programs director Mary Hodges and Erin Fleming, a hearing teacher and VAIEP specialist, updated board members on programs being offered to students taking life skills classes and enrolled in LINCS, an adult education and literacy program.

Hodges said that students in the life skills classes will receive training focused on independent living that includes both school-based hands-on learning and community activities.

The students will be trained in laundry skills — how to operate washers and dryers — and will work with the athletic department washing, drying, folding and sorting clothes. They will take field trips to laundromats to learn how to use the equipment at those facilities and basic clothing repair skills such as hemming, button sewing and small hole repair.

Their automotive training will teach students how to check oil levels, change tires, fill up with washer fluid and wash a car. It will include field trips to the auto mechanics program at Mecklenburg County High School and to outside automotive facilities.

These students will also learn basic culinary skills — not only how to prepare food but also how to shop for ingredients, read a recipe and operate kitchen appliances and gadgets.

The final component of their life skills training will have them working with the agriculture students to learn garden basics and the care of animals.

The LINCS program under the leadership of Fleming is now in its third year. The program provides students in the life skills classes with job opportunities outside of the school. Fleming said the program is open to 11th and 12th grade students. Currently there are 13 participants in the program who work with seven job coaches.

She said last year, three students were offered part-time jobs. “Normally only 48 percent of students with IEP have jobs after graduation,” Fleming said, adding that students in the LINCS program “are gaining hands-on job training during school hours.”

Current business partners include 313 Franklin Restaurant, South Hill United Methodist Church, South Hill Presbyterian Church, La Crosse Elementary School, Southern Virginia Food Hub, and Roses Department Store.

Bailey said there are plans to expand the program to the western end of the county but business partners are needed there for that to occur.

Finance Director Amber Barbour laid out the process for the school division to develop its budget for the 2025 fiscal year that begins on July 1.

She said meetings with school principals and the directors of each department to learn their spending priorities have already taken place.

The next set of meetings will be with the human resources department and instructional staff to receive their input. That information will be consolidated into a report presented to the superintendent.

From that report, Worner will begin building the budget. This year, for the first time, Deputy County Administrator Alex Gottschalk, who has been handling many of the finance related matters for the county, has asked to have a meeting with school officials before they submit their budget request to the county.

Bailey asked why that meeting, which had never happened before, was now part of the school division’s budget preparation process.

Worner responded saying that Gottschalk wanted to be “fluent with process [and learn] where we are going or how we are going to get there. He has no intention of trying to drive where we are going or how we will get there.”

Honeycutt then interjected saying he hoped salaries for teachers would be “part of a big discussion this year” and that the Board of Supervisors needed to be reminded that the division is struggling to recruit new teachers. “$40,000 [the salary paid to starting teachers] is not going to cut it anymore. We need to recruit competent teachers but that takes money. We have a great faculty who are also very much underpaid. Get them what they are supposed to be making.”

Honeycutt did not say what amount of money he felt was an appropriate salary for either new or experienced teachers.

Barbour informed the board that neither the county nor the school budget would be developed, beyond a preliminary stage, until after Youngkin issues a proposed budget for the state. She also reminded the board that the additional funding the school has been receiving in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief or ESSER would have to be spent before September of 2024.

ESSER money was part of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Ac. It is grant money that addresses the impact the COVID-19 pandemic on student services and learning loss that students suffered during school building closures

MCPS used a portion of that money to hire counselors and education specialists who were tasked with helping students academically and emotionally. The ESSER money used to pay for those staff positions will dry up as of September 2024.

There was no discussion about whether the division had plans to retain those teachers or counselors once the division was no longer receiving ESSER funding.

Trustees agreed to sell used wrestling mats to a high school in Danville and Worner announced that work was beginning on the development of a new two-year calendar for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.

There will be a meeting of the Joint Education Committee of the Board of Supervisors and School Board Dec. 14 at 4 p.m. at the school division central office.

Worner put out a plea for people interested in driving a school bus. The division is offering the training needed for drivers to earn their CDL. He said that MCPS Assistant Superintendent Christy Peffer, Finance Director Amber Barbour and he were all taking the training.

Transportation Director Tammy Moore said the division has hired six new school bus drivers, who are currently undergoing training, but more are needed. Persons interested should call the school division at (434) 738-6111.

During board member comments, Glenn Edwards asked for prayers for Garland Mull, who worked for the school division for 37 years. “He knew where every water and sewer line was in every school.”

Chair Dora Garner asked for prayers for board member Gloria Smith who is still in recovery from complications from surgery. Smith will not return to the board at the end of her term in December.