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District proposes $311,343 in literacy materials — headphones and bilingual novel sets funded by grant
Summary
Rockdale County Public Schools staff recommended the purchase of classroom headphones ($188,926.85) and English/Spanish novel sets ($122,416.49) to support the district’s birth-to-12 comprehensive literacy plan; funding is reported as an L4GA grant. Staff said Benchmark Advance was selected as the core literacy option after stakeholder review.
Dr. Denise Richardson, speaking for the curriculum and instruction team, presented two action items the superintendent will recommend for board approval: classroom headphones for PreK–12 and novel sets for grades 6–12 in English and Spanish.
The proposal supports the district’s birth-to-12 literacy plan by widening multimodal access to text and classroom resources. Dr. Richardson said the purchases will enable students to use podcasts, videos, audiobooks and other multimodal materials in core instruction and intervention.
“The superintendent will recommend that the Rockdale County Board of Education approve the purchase of headphones for literacy in our pre K through 12 classrooms ... totaling $188,926.85. The funding source is L 4 GA grant,” Dr. Richardson said. She added the second action item: “the superintendent will recommend that the Rockdale County Board of Education approve the purchase of novel sets that are in English and Spanish for students in grades 6 through 12 ... totaling $122,416.49,” also funded from the L4GA grant.
Dr. Richardson described a district-level selection process for literacy resources. She said the district’s internal audit and stakeholder feedback (teachers, parents, special-education staff and coaches) led the team to adopt Benchmark Advance as the district’s core resource from the state’s approved literacy options, and that the district has provided multiple rounds of professional development and focus walks to support implementation.
She also said the district is using an intervention resource (described as the Windsor/Sonday system in the presentation) for students in special education, English learners and Early-Intervention Program populations and that the literacy team is developing an “innovation configuration map” to define expected implementation in year one and year three.
These purchases were presented as action items at the work session and were not voted on there; administration proposed placing them on the regular-session consent agenda. Board members asked how the curriculum was chosen and how the district will measure return on investment; Dr. Richardson described training, focus walks and an implementation-monitoring plan being developed by coaches and leaders.
Ending: The literacy purchases and implementation supports will be placed on the upcoming consent agenda for board consideration. Staff said ongoing monitoring (focus walks, coach support and an innovation-configuration map) will be used to track implementation and outcomes.
