Chief Botticelli, the district’s chief academic officer, told the Board that the Buffalo City School District’s literacy goal for economically disadvantaged third graders is to increase New York State grade‑3 ELA proficiency from 17.1% (Sept. 2024) to 19.3% in September 2025. "So in other words, we're looking for a 2.2 improvement on our grade 3 state assessment in English," Botticelli said, laying out the primary outcome the district is tracking.

To support that target, Botticelli described a set of interim measures and classroom supports meant to produce steady gains rather than a single end‑of‑year swing. The district seeks a 2 percentage point rise in the I‑Ready ELA benchmark (30% → 32% by June) and a 5 percentage point improvement on DIBELS proficiency (40% → 45% by June). A separate objective aims to shrink the share of students scoring "well below average" on DIBELS from 47% to 43%.

Botticelli told the board the district is using several implementation levers: regular classroom coaching visits, Orton‑Gillingham (OG) implementation supported by partner Emsi, district curriculum audits, targeted professional development (including LETRS training), and ensuring each elementary building has a reading teacher. She said schools will monitor student progress with periodic DIBELS checks and use the coaching tool to identify where instructional adjustments are needed.

Board members asked about family engagement and district support for home reading. Botticelli and Superintendent Williams Knight said the district provides book bags for pre‑K and kindergarten students, plans to send home decodable texts over breaks, and is creating short parent vignettes with tips families can use to practice reading at home.

The presentation emphasized that the targets are incremental and tied to classroom practice: Botticelli said the district expects to see growth from improved phonics instruction, fluency practice and comprehension work that align with state assessment demands. She and the superintendent also noted the pandemic’s lingering effects on this cohort’s early literacy exposure and described the effort as part of the district’s broader 5‑by‑25 goals.