Lakeland highlights early-literacy gains, plans targeted training for middle grades and fluency

Assistant Superintendent Jake Massie and trustees spent the workshop reviewing literacy and curriculum matters, emphasizing early-reading results, ongoing curriculum availability, and planned professional development to address middle-school gaps.

Massie said district materials and processes are publicly available on the curriculum page and in a curriculum handbook the board recently approved, and he encouraged parents and patrons to make appointments to review materials at district office. "This link goes directly to our curriculum page on the website," he said, noting the district maintains a directory of core curriculum resources that is updated grade-by-grade.

Why it matters: trustees pressed for clarity about which curriculum tools are in place and whether staff have the training to use them effectively. The answers shape classroom instruction and help explain assessment results across grades.

Early-literacy findings and actions Massie reviewed kindergarten and early-grade literacy outcomes pulled into the SIP draft: the district reported a kindergarten spring IRI proficient rate at about 85% (the draft used last year's number). He cautioned trustees that the IRI is changing this year and that any target would be partly speculative until students take the new assessment. He also described state-supported professional development the district is using: the Idaho Smart Project cohort training for primary teachers, which the district is sending cohorts to this year, and additional phonics/phonemic-awareness work in early grades.

Massie said the district continues to use phonics-based approaches and named an existing phonics resource in the presentation. He described a bank of professional-development days purchased with a vendor for use across the district and said some of those days are now being applied this year to middle-school teachers: "based on the contract that we paid for with professional development days with them that has just been sitting in a bank... I am using quite a few of those this week for all of our administrators and our middle school teachers as well."

Trustees praised the full-day kindergarten program as evidence of sustained investment in early literacy and asked for clearer public reporting on teacher supports. Massie described an October 15 growth-and-goals check-in with the I-Ready vendor and said the district will continue to track formative classroom measures in addition to state tests.

Middle-school math and fluency focus Trustees questioned why some cohorts showed lower proficiency in middle grades (for example, 6th-grade math proficiency reported at 43%) and asked whether curriculum implementation or insufficient teacher training was a factor. Massie said middle-school implementation was not as "thorough or robust" as elementary adoption had been; middle-level teachers had more complicated pacing and credit issues and did not receive the same depth of rollout. He committed resources to strengthen middle-level math supports and to re-deploy PD days for those teachers.

On reading fluency, Massie and trustees noted that words-correct-per-minute measures lagged even when comprehension and vocabulary had improved. Massie said the district identified the gap and is adding explicit fluency practices to supplement the adopted core (the district adopted a program focused on comprehension and vocabulary and is adding fluency routines to classrooms). He described classroom-level evidence: more guided reading, read-aloud time, and fluency practice in grades 1 and 2.

Trustees asked for clearer communication to the public about curriculum choices, where additional PD is being provided, and for regular updates on whether classroom-level supports are closing the gaps described. Massie said he will follow up with principals and provide the board with revised SIP metrics once cohort calculations and PD schedules are finalized.

Ending: trustees expressed support for continued focus on early literacy and for targeted PD in middle-school math; they asked staff to return with recalculated cohort targets and an implementation timeline for the PD and fluency initiatives.