District staff recommends Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K–8 ELA curriculum to unify instruction

Tracy Griffiths, district curriculum staff, recommended that the Beach Park CCSD 3 school board move forward with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s (HMH) K–8 English language arts curriculum, saying the program would provide continuity across grades and matching materials for bilingual classrooms.

Griffiths told the board that the district’s current ELA materials are largely teacher-created units and assessments, supplemented by aging Fountas & Pinnell resources and a mix of other classroom texts. “We are lacking rigorous writing lessons, and the alignment from K through 8 is missing,” she said, adding that the district’s frameworks were created about six years ago and have been revised only incrementally.

The recommendation, Griffiths said, follows a year in which the district piloted i-Ready with mixed results and reviewed HMH. She described HMH as “a balance of foundational skills, comprehension and writing” with a single learning platform for kindergarten through eighth grade and Spanish-language units to better align the district’s bilingual and monolingual classrooms. “K through 8 will utilize the same learning platform … we’ve never had a curriculum that has spanned from kindergarten to eighth grade continuously. So the continuity, is huge with this program,” Griffiths said.

Griffiths outlined implementation supports included with HMH: digital resources that allow teachers to assign different reading levels and printable materials, built-in assessments tied to standards, and professional development beginning this summer and continuing through the next school year with coaching and institute days.

When a board member asked about funding, the exchange made clear the district plans to use existing grants. The board member asked, “Do I take it that all the costs of the program is going to be through the fund, the grants, or is there some other district back into us?” Griffiths replied, “No, it will all be taken out of grant funding, including all of the professional development.” She added that Title I and school improvement funds available in the current fiscal year were expected to cover most costs, with minimal district expense next year.

Board members asked how the HMH proposal compared to programs observed at other districts. A board member noted visits to neighboring districts that use Benchmark and supplemental tools such as Imagine Learning; Griffiths said those districts did not have a single K–8 curriculum for both dual language and general education. Griffiths also said she had consulted Ms. Brito and Ro Torres (district staff) to review Spanish-language materials.

Griffiths said HMH also offers a math program spanning K–8, which the district may consider later; she noted i-Ready’s middle-school offerings and Spanish support were limited. The recommendation presented to the board was that the board approve moving forward with HMH for ELA; the transcript records the recommendation and discussion but does not record a board vote on that specific purchase or adoption in the provided excerpt.

The recommendation is expected to return to the board for formal action after further review and budgeting steps by staff and the finance committee.