TLE committee approves $25,000+ contract renewals; staff demos SchoolPace, board questions usage and fidelity

The Teaching, Learning and Engagement Committee of the Beloit School District voted to forward the list of contract renewals and purchases at or above $25,000 for the 2025–26 school year to the full Board of Education after staff demonstrated the district’s ARC (American Reading Company) SchoolPace portal and answered several implementation questions from committee members.

Committee members discussed the district’s long-standing adoption of American Reading Company materials and the integrated technology called SchoolPace during a demonstration by district staff. Teresa Moritek, a district staff member who presented the contracts and purchases list, said the items under consideration are renewals and that they meet “the new threshold and or requirements under the updated policy for purchasing.” Tony (district staff) logged into SchoolPace and showed district- and school-level dashboards that track student independent reading levels (IRLA), growth reports and classroom-level data. “You can see, at the district level, at the school level, at the grade level, all the way down to the student level, exactly how much students are growing,” Tony said during the demonstration.

Board members pressed for specifics about usage, access to teacher materials and ties to state literacy requirements. A committee member asked whether SchoolPace shows the systematic phonics progression that aligns with Act 20, the state early-literacy statute; Tony and staff answered that ARC’s framework has been updated to align with Act 20 and that the framework and foundational skills are visible in the portal. Staff said the digital curricular resources are available under the portal’s “My ARC” area and that the portal is the required place to enter IRLA/ANNEAL benchmark assessment data.

Committee members also discussed other renewals on the contracts list. Staff compared the district’s former use of DreamBox with the current Imagine Math program and said Imagine Math has shown a larger effect size in internal analyses (DreamBox ~0.11; Imagine Math ~0.22), while cautioning that effect depends on implementation fidelity. Staff described a usage goal for Imagine Math of roughly 30 lessons per student by the end of the school year. The committee heard that SpringBoard, the district’s secondary English-language-arts core, was recently sold by College Board to McGraw Hill and may be subject to future changes or sunsetting by the new owner, which affects timing and budgeting for future secondary curriculum decisions.

Members emphasized budget scrutiny because the district is facing budgetary constraints. One committee member said, “This is a pricey thing that we purchased. Since we’re in a budget crisis, we’re asking questions because we’re just looking to make sure that we’re getting the most bang for our buck.” Staff responded that adoptions are procured as a package (materials, teacher resources and integrated tech) and that the district follows a five-year curriculum renewal cycle; staff recommended continuing with full adopted programs rather than parceling pieces out of an adoption.

After questions and the SchoolPace demonstration, the committee voted to approve forwarding the attached purchases and contracts at or in excess of $25,000 for the 2025–26 school year to the full Board of Education. The motion carried.

The committee briefly covered other vendors on the list — Apex (credit recovery), SpringBoard (secondary ELA), Imagine Math and supplemental materials — and staff said more detailed usage data can be produced by vendors or by district analytics teams if committee members want further evidence of access and implementation. The chair closed the item and the committee moved on to other agenda items.

The committee’s approval sends the contract renewals to the full board; individual contract details, pricing and vendor-specific usage statistics were discussed but not all were specified in the meeting record.