The Alabama State Board of Education heard an update on LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) training during its Dec. 10 work session. Dr. Mackey, the state superintendent, introduced a LETRS representative and state staff who briefed the board on participation, delivery and assessment results.

The LETRS representative, identified in the meeting as Laura Wolfe, said 9,928 educators in Alabama are either enrolled in or have completed one or more LETRS courses. Wolfe told the board that cohorts include 7,933 K–3 teachers in the standard LETRS (third edition) course, 1,225 early‑childhood educators and 770 building‑ and district‑level administrators enrolled in an administrators’ LETRS course. Wolfe said cohorts are at different stages: cohort 1 finished in May, cohort 2 is about three‑quarters complete and cohort 3 is roughly 25% complete.

Wolfe said sessions are delivered in three‑hour webinar blocks (during school, after school and on some Saturdays) and that the program has provided 1,105 sessions in Alabama since July 1, including 974 sessions for K–12 teachers, 85 for administrators and 46 for early‑childhood educators. She described additional small‑group consultation sessions for “full support” schools (1:2 to 1:10 consultant‑to‑teacher ratios) and named Dr. Carol Coleman as a lead consultant assigned to several Alabama schools.

State staff and LETRS presenters also reviewed participant survey and pretest/posttest results. Wolfe reported an average pretest score of 59% across users in Alabama and a 52% average pretest for teachers from full‑support schools; she said posttest averages for units on theoretical models and English speech sounds were about 96% across users. Wolfe said 81% of anonymous session ratings were “excellent” and 9% “good.” She also summarized more than 13,000 narrative feedback responses praising the training and describing immediate classroom takeaways.

Board members asked for the LETRS slide deck and for a copy of the participant numbers and schedules. Dr. Elizabeth Davis and other State Department of Education staff described ongoing collaboration with the Alabama Reading Initiative and with colleges of education to align pre‑service training with LETRS. Dr. Mackey and several board members emphasized that the effort aims to build long‑term capacity, noting that funding requests to the legislature will continue while programs scale up.

State staff said the LETRS presentation materials will be distributed to the board and that additional coordination with higher education and district leaders is under way. The department also described a built‑in three‑year completion window for LETRS participants to allow flexibility during the pandemic.

Board members expressed support for continued coordination and asked staff to provide the slide deck and detailed counts to board members and to the field.