The North Kingstown Budget and Finance Advisory Committee spent the bulk of its Dec. 1 meeting debating whether to invest district funds in instructional coaching to address recent declines on state assessments.

At the meeting, the chair read an email from Mr. Mazzonati summarizing work with Dr. Clark and recommending that "the most effective way to improve test scores is through a direct focus on best practices with core tier 1 instruction," and urging investment in instructional coaches who provide classroom observation, feedback and goal-driven cycles with teachers. "Coaching is research based top practice," the memo said.

Committee members said coaching may help but urged a more granular investigation before new hires or permanent budget commitments. Robert Jones pointed to persistent achievement gaps — for example, a roughly 30-point male-female gap in ELA at one middle school and other double-digit gaps at Woodford and TMS — and called for cohort-level tracking and analysis to understand whether declines stem from instruction, demographic shifts or testing alignment. "We need more targeted understanding of why that gap historically persists," Jones said.

Leslie O'Fallon, Director of Finance, told the committee the most recent budget-to-actual worksheets (through Oct. 31) show the district operating on budget but cautioned that the worksheet is a straight budget-to-actual with no forward projections. She and others said that, if coaching is proposed, the administration should present evaluation data from last year’s coaching pilot (a RIDE grant-funded literacy coach) and any measurable outcomes where coaches were deployed.

Several members suggested exploring grant options and targeted pilots rather than immediately adding general-fund FTEs. "There are grants out there," O'Fallon said; the transcript records discussion of a past RIDE literacy coach grant and other federal and state funding sources. Still, members emphasized the budget trade-offs: coaching costs staff time and dollars that could be prioritized elsewhere.

The committee asked administration to return with longitudinal, cohort-based data (tracking students who remained in the district across grades), an evaluation of the prior coaching pilot, and clearer proposals that weigh coaching against alternate strategies such as targeted interventions or curriculum adjustments. The discussion closed without a formal vote on new coaching positions; any budget request would be prioritized alongside other FTE and program proposals in the upcoming budget process.