Francis Howell R‑III staff recommend HMH’s Into Reading as K‑5 ELA core; $2.29M purchase due to board in April

At a special work session, Francis Howell R‑III district staff recommended adopting Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Into Reading as the district’s K‑5 core English language arts resource and said they will bring a purchase recommendation to the April board meeting.

The recommendation follows a yearlong program evaluation, vendor reviews and classroom trials of four candidate programs — Into Reading, Wonders, Benchmark Advance and Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA). Julie Reguski, the district’s K‑12 ELA content leader, summarized the selection process and trial results and said teachers favored Into Reading: "Almost 74 percent of teachers who participated in the trials recommended Into Reading." Melinda Sheets, the district literacy coordinator, described the work as the product of a two‑year effort and presented the program evaluation findings that led to the adoption process.

Why it matters: staff said this is one of the district’s largest academic purchases because the resource would be used with every K‑5 student for up to six years and affect roughly 600 teachers across 10 elementary schools. The HMH proposal totals $2,293,674.57; HMH agreed to spread payments over three fiscal years ($293,674.57 in the current year, $1,000,000 in FY26, $1,000,000 in FY27). Staff also said ceasing the separately…