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District literacy council sets three goals; board members ask for broader school-level engagement
Summary
The Crook County School District literacy council reported goals to align K–5 instruction and assessments, expand tiered interventions and build professional development; a board member urged more inclusive, building-level root-cause analysis before solutions are finalized.
District literacy leaders presented an update Wednesday on a newly convened literacy council that will guide K–5 reading improvement work and pilot curriculum and interventions this spring.
Why it matters: Elementary literacy performance drives state accountability and long-term student outcomes. The district said its three-year average proficiency is near the state average and that the council’s work aims to accelerate improvement.
The district described the literacy council as roughly 25 educators (about 15 classroom teachers, five reading specialists and three administrators) tasked with three primary goals: clarity and alignment of K–5 instruction and assessment; identifying Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions and appropriate materials; and creating a professional-development plan to equip staff for quality intervention delivery.
"We have decided to task ourselves with three literacy goals," a council facilitator said, outlining plans to double progress monitoring for strategic and intensive students to twice a month, continue universal benchmarks (DIBELS three times a year) and pilot multiple curricular materials in spring.
Board members responded with questions about process. One board member said the district should first convene a broad, systemwide conversation — including building-level teachers — to agree on whether a problem exists, identify root causes and define shared measures before implementing solutions. The board member asked the council to incorporate that step into its plan design.
Another board member noted national assessment results and urged attention to statewide reading declines, while acknowledging that district scores compare favorably to state averages but still require improvement.
District staff said they will report back to the board in May with progress updates on the council’s pilots and interventions.
