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Middle schools report literacy gains, plan schedule changes and districtwide responsive-classroom training
Summary
Middle school leaders reported early literacy growth following a new curriculum, described collaborative C3 planning structures and coaches’ support, outlined schedule adjustments to add instructional minutes for core subjects, and announced districtwide responsive-classroom training and ACP alignment with the Cardinal's Journey.
Middle school leaders presented a combined update on literacy implementation, professional collaboration, schedule changes and plans for academic and career planning (ACP) at the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District’s March 3 meeting, saying early indicators show literacy growth and outlining next steps to sustain that implementation.
Literacy implementation and data: Administrators said the district adopted a new literacy curriculum this year with a large scope (several units totaling more content than available instructional days) and that teachers are selecting priority units in team planning. Early fall-to-winter measures (staff noted a national re-norming of Star reading assessments that affects comparisons) showed overall gains and particularly notable improvements among some underserved subgroups, according to district presenters. Coaches JoAnna Cree, Holly Reardon and Amanda Montoya were credited for in-class and planning support.
Professional collaboration and C3 teams: School leaders described established co-planning/co-learning teams (“C3s”) that include general-education teachers, specialists and case managers to plan instruction and interventions collectively. Administrators said C3s are an important structure for sharing assessment data, common assessments and targeted instructional moves.
Schedule changes and minutes: To accommodate the new curriculum’s recommended instructional minutes for literacy and math, the middle schools will shift schedules to provide roughly 55-minute core blocks (an increase of about 10 minutes per day for some grades). Administrators said the changes reduce the number of daily transitions, allow deeper work in literacy and math, and will require encore/rotation adjustments for non-core classes.
Social-emotional learning and extracurriculars: District leaders announced a responsive-classroom training rollout for middle-school staff during the summer with schoolwide implementation in September. They also presented participation figures for extracurriculars (the presentation cited about 52 clubs at one middle school and 43 at the other) and positive behavior recognition totals (roughly 2,000 positive referrals across the two schools), noting extracurricular participation correlates with engagement.
Academic and career planning (ACP): Administrators reported progress on revising ACP so it aligns with the Cardinal’s Journey competencies and creates a multi-year student portfolio/learning-path experience beginning in sixth grade. The middle-level team described mapping ACP lessons and planning a more distributed approach across grades rather than concentrating all ACP lessons in eighth grade.
Board reaction and next steps: Board members praised the literacy results and coaches’ work, asked about supports for students with fine-motor/writing struggles and transportation for extracurriculars, and were told the district provides late buses for students with identified transportation barriers. Administration said more schedule and ACP details will be provided as staffing and FTE decisions are finalized.
Ending: Administrators said they will continue to monitor literacy outcomes, return with finalized schedules and ACP materials, and begin responsive-classroom professional learning ahead of the 2025–26 school year.
