Question Asked:
I’d like to see what a school committee candidate can bring to the table in terms of literacy curriculum and reading support, not just in the elementary schools, but in middle and high school as well.
My Answer:
As a School Committee member, it would not be my role to choose curriculum and generally, my preference would be to set goals and then focus on measuring the success of curriculum choices by looking at student outcomes. With that said, this is an area where I am not inclined to rely on aggregate data for decision making. At a glance, our scores in Natick generally seem "good" if you look at measures like MCAS and compare them to state averages. Unfortunately, a substandard literacy curriculum often impacts those overlooked vulnerable learners that manage to hit benchmarks. While the scores are there, the academic and SEL impacts are real and meaningful even if not always statistically significant. We also need to be acutely aware that delays in reading proficiency very quickly begin to impact performance in all other subjects. I deeply appreciate this based both on my experience with my own kids (who are not neurotypical learners) and what I've heard from so many others in the community. The science of reading is clear, and I would want to be a voice for that on the committee.