Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Student Opportunity Act topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
District reports early implementation steps under Student Opportunity Act plan
Summary
Wilmington Public Schools reported early implementation of its three‑year Student Opportunity Act plan, focusing on K–5 literacy, specialized reading instruction for students with disabilities and supports for multilingual learners; formal state-assessment results are not yet available.
Assistant Superintendent Miss Elliott presented the district’s annual update on the Student Opportunity Act plan, describing first-year implementation steps and early internal progress monitoring but noting that formal state assessment data were not yet available.
The Student Opportunity Act requires districts to submit three-year plans with annual updates; the Wilmington plan named students with disabilities, low-income students and multilingual learners as priority subgroups and set literacy and attainment targets for those groups.
Elliott said the district focused its first-year efforts on implementing the new K–5 literacy program, providing professional development (including Wilson training for specialized reading instruction) and strengthening multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) at the high school and K–8 levels. She said internal progress-monitoring showed promising gains but MCAS and ACCESS test results needed to complete the evaluation.
On multilingual supports, Elliott said the district has been adding staff as enrollment in multilingual programs grows, decentralizing translation and interpretation processes and training staff to provide on-the-spot translation for families. She described contracts for formal translators and machine translation (Lexmark) for some documents and said the district is working with community members to check translated materials for quality.
Committee members asked for more data. Doctor McCauley asked whether the district could share interim screening data; Elliott said she would compile the three-cycle universal-screening data (DIBELS for K–5, IXL and i‑Ready for other grades) and present it at year end or at the start of the next school year.
Elliott also described a planned curriculum review for grades 6–8 ELA and a timeline that could produce recommendations by midyear next school year, including consideration of the 6–8 companion materials to the adopted K–5 literacy program.
No formal action was taken; committee members asked for follow-up reporting that includes the third screening cycle and MCAS/ACCESS results when available.
