Parents, teachers press Kingston board to preserve George Washington Montessori as district rolls out CKLA

Parents, teachers and school leaders pressed the Kingston City School District Board of Education on Monday over the future of the Montessori program at George Washington Elementary and the district’s plan to implement the Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) curriculum across elementary schools.

A petition circulated by George Washington families and submitted to the district “in five days” gathered widespread signatories, parents said. “We have 217 community members who stepped up in 5 days to say how much they agree,” said a parent representative. Organizers later described the petition as having “more than 200 signatures, including 88 current parents,” and asked the board to adopt a dual-track model that would allow Montessori teachers to continue using Montessori-aligned reading curriculum while CKLA is implemented elsewhere.

The petition and public comments followed a district announcement that CKLA would be implemented at George Washington. At the meeting, several parents and former/current staff said they had not been given clear information about whether Montessori-trained teachers would be permitted to keep using Montessori reading materials next year and asked for clearer communication and transparency from the district.

“Parents and guardians are not merely stakeholders,” said Yanna Fisher, a George Washington DLT representative and parent, arguing that the district should engage parents early when “significant changes to curriculum, programming, or infrastructure are contemplated.” Several parents described their children as thriving in the Montessori multiage classrooms and said losing the option would disproportionately affect families who cannot afford private Montessori programs in nearby communities.

Speakers representing families also asked about a consultant’s investigation into reports of toxic leadership at the school, saying interviews had involved more than 40 faculty and staff. Mario Fiore, who said he spoke after the parent academy, asked for an update on that investigation and called unresolved staff concerns a “serious internal threat.”

District staff presented the school’s instructional work and data during the superintendent’s report. Principal Wanda Lobianco described George Washington as “a targeted support and improvement school,” and said the school’s targeted subgroups include Hispanic students, English language learners (ELs) and economically disadvantaged students. She gave subgroup percentages for the 2023–24 school year and said those percentages had increased for the current year; she did not provide the updated state numbers at the meeting.

Reading and English-language instruction staff described two major initiatives at George Washington. Miss Destiny Dugan, who described the school’s sheltered instruction program built on the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP), said the school had met New York State’s mandated minutes for EL support for the first time. Dugan said the district uses SIOP’s eight components (lesson preparation, building background, comprehensible input, strategies, interaction, practice, lesson delivery, and review/assessment) to scaffold language and academic instruction.

Miss Kira Tucko, the reading teacher who piloted CKLA in two classes this year, presented pilot results and progress-monitoring data. Tucko said a kindergarten pilot moved from 38% of students on grade level at the start of the year to nearly all students on or above grade level by the spring, according to I-Ready data for the classes that took the assessment. She also showed oral fluency progress for three fourth-grade students in a CKLA pilot: one student’s words read on a fourth-grade passage increased from 11 to 24, another from 8 to 21, and a third from 58 to 69 words, a presenter said.

Board members and district officials responded on scheduling and EL minutes. Dr. Padalino (superintendent) and staff said scheduling EL pull-out and push-in minutes is complex but that the plan is to integrate CKLA content into EL sheltered instruction so students do not miss critical knowledge-building time. Dugan said entering or emerging EL students are slated for 360 minutes per week of EL services (combined pull-out and push-in), including about 180 minutes of pull-out time, referring to New York State requirements (CR Part 154) discussed at the meeting.

Several speakers urged the board to adopt a two-track model allowing Montessori-certified teachers to keep Montessori-aligned reading curriculum while the district deploys CKLA in other classrooms. Parents described uncertainty about staffing and whether multiple Montessori teachers would seek transfers if the program changed. “I can feel the frustration,” said a parent who asked the board to improve communication and transparency.

The public comment period was followed by routine business: the board reported that a district budget proposition was approved and that three trustee candidates were declared elected. The district announced the budget amount authorized for the 2025–26 school year was $249,522,500. The district also accepted a donation to the Chambers Elementary School library and approved consent-agenda items, including the item pulled for separate consideration (CS 22) before it passed.

The board did not take a final vote during the meeting to adopt a two-track model for George Washington; parents and staff said they expect continued engagement and follow-up. Board members thanked speakers and presenters and said administrators take public comment into account and will discuss next steps after the meeting.