West Chester Area SD committee approves Lexia PowerUp for secondary reading intervention
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Summary
The Teaching, Learning and Equity Committee approved Lexia PowerUp as a tier‑2, secondary reading intervention resource after a presentation from Kara Bailey highlighting personalization, structured literacy strands and early pilot results; the vote was 4‑0.
The West Chester Area School District Teaching, Learning and Equity Committee on an unspecified April meeting approved Lexia PowerUp as a core instructional resource for secondary reading intervention classes.
Kara Bailey, supervisor of secondary English language arts and reading, told the committee the district convened a review team of teachers, administrators and parents to evaluate secondary materials and recommended Lexia PowerUp to support tier‑2 reading intervention at the middle‑ and high‑school levels. "This is a resource that would support our tier 2 reading intervention classes at the secondary level," Bailey said.
Committee members heard that Lexia PowerUp personalizes instruction after an initial automated placement assessment and organizes instruction into three strands—word study, grammar and comprehension—designed for adolescent learners. Bailey said the program focuses on developmentally appropriate work such as Greek and Latin roots and multisyllabic word analysis, and pairs an online adaptive component with teacher‑led small‑group resources. "One of the aspects of Lexia PowerUp that the students and teachers have found to be most impactful is the level of personalization for our students," Bailey said.
During public comments, resident Judy DeFonzo emphasized the importance of human instruction alongside any computer‑based program and raised questions about whether the resource would be used as core instruction or only in intervention. "Best practices with teaching kids to read is always to have a human and small group 1 to 1 instruction depending upon the student's needs," DeFonzo said. Bailey and committee members clarified to the group that the district intends Lexia PowerUp to supplement teacher instruction in tier‑2 intervention settings, not to replace teacher‑led instruction.
Bailey presented early implementation data from the district's small pilot of the program: students completed 76 word‑study units, 28 grammar units and 88 comprehension units during the pilot window; at the start of the year, 77 percent of pilot students had at least one skill in the foundational zone, and by February the pilot moved 30 percent of students out of that foundational zone. Bailey noted overlap in the pilot cohort with English‑language‑learner (ELL) students and said teachers used Lexia data to set individual goals with students.
Committee discussion focused on buy‑in and developmental appropriateness for adolescents, access to printable teacher materials from the program's teacher hub, and whether students receive ongoing feedback. Bailey said students can view their progress and work with teachers on goal setting; she described classroom rotations in which teachers pull small groups for targeted instruction while others work independently on personalized strands.
The committee voted to approve Lexia PowerUp for secondary reading intervention classes; the motion carried 4‑0. The committee did not identify a mover or seconder on the record.
