Board approves three-year secondary reading-intervention contract after extended debate

The Baltimore County Board of Education on July 8 approved a three-year contract to provide tier‑2 reading-intervention programs for middle and high school students, one of two vendors the district will use to support students who do not reach grade-level reading benchmarks.

The contract — shortened from an earlier six‑year proposal to a three‑year, $1.6 million agreement presented at the meeting — was framed by district staff as a targeted, time‑bound purchase aimed at improving fidelity of implementation and allowing the district to reassess results more frequently.

District leaders described the contract as covering two comprehension-focused models used in secondary schools: Read 180 (used in about 15 schools that have demonstrated training and implementation fidelity) and ILET (proposed for schools where Read 180 had not shown the same results). Dr. Rogers (superintendent) told the board the contract targets about 5,000 licenses out of roughly 56,123 secondary…