Springfield presenters outline early-literacy gains and large tutoring expansion for fall

Assistant Superintendent Terry Poe told the Springfield School Committee that early literacy remains the district's top priority and that screening and targeted instruction show improvement but also "an urgent need for improvement in instruction." Poe said the district uses the DESE-approved screener MCLASS (a DIBELS 8-based tool) and diagnostic data from i-Ready to guide instruction for grades K–5.

Poe and Laura Menz, director of elementary instruction, presented end-of-year screening and diagnostic results showing "about half of our kids are at grade level and about half are below grade level" and said most grades trended in the right direction from the start to the end of the year. "As it increases, it's not as significant as it should be," Poe said, adding that the district will pursue instructional strategies this school year.

The presenters emphasized two tutoring programs the district will scale this fall: an awarded high-dosage, human-tutoring grant that will serve 799 incoming first-graders and a pilot of Amira, an AI reading tutor. Poe described last spring's short pilot at four priority schools in which 141 first-graders who had been performing at early kindergarten levels were served; by the end of the pilot, 68 percent of those students were working on first-grade skills, and students averaged "2 and a half weeks of growth for every week of instruction," Poe said. Poe attributed the human-tutoring research base to Johns Hopkins University.

Menz said the Amira pilot will enroll about 450 students in grades 2–6 across six schools for the first three months of the school year and described it as an adaptive, oral-language-focused tutor that will provide weekly reports teachers can use to guide instruction. "Reading, teaching reading, is rocket science," Menz said, urging continued professional development for teachers.

Menz and Poe described large professional learning investments: one recent session involved about 1,100 elementary teachers and paraeducators in development on the science of reading, standards-based instruction and use of district instructional materials. Menz said administrators and instructional coaches will receive additional training to support classroom teachers.

Committee members asked for more disaggregated data. School Committee member Collins asked specifically whether the presenters could break out results for students who attended full-day preschool versus those who did not. Poe said the district has examined that comparison before, that the gap is narrowing, and offered to provide the specific breakdown on request. Vice Chair Monroe Naylor and Mayor Sarno both asked clarifying questions about cohort movement between grades; presenters said the slides shown were grade-level comparisons and that cohort analyses are available and will be used for deeper study.

No formal committee vote was taken on instructional policy or program adoption during the presentation; the briefing was presented as informational and staff said they would follow up with requested cohort and preschool-attendance breakdowns for committee members.