Board hears split views on two elementary reading pilots as members press for disaggregated data

The East Brunswick Board of Education on Feb. 18 heard an update on two elementary reading pilot programs and pressed administrators for more disaggregated evidence before moving toward a recommendation.

District staff described two pilots in kindergarten through grade 6: Being a Reader, which pairs whole-group instruction with planned small-group centers, and Amplify CKLA/ELA, which emphasizes knowledge-building, vocabulary and integrated grammar instruction. The district said pilot teachers received company training in 2025 and continue to receive site visits and coaching.

The administration laid out a six-point evaluation plan: the New Jersey Department of Education's instructional-materials rubric, teacher focus groups, principal walk-through feedback, universal screener comparisons, and student and parent feedback. Officials said initial universal-screener results show some growth in pilot classrooms but cautioned the results are an early, un-disaggregated view and that the pilot groups are much smaller than the non-pilot sample.

"This is an initial glance," the presenter said, urging caution in comparing the pilot and non-pilot groups because the non-pilot cohort is nearly 3,000 students while each pilot has only a few hundred.

Board members repeatedly asked for additional breakdowns. Antoinette Evola pressed administrators for counts of students with learning challenges in each pilot, grade-level comparisons, and subgroup outcomes for multilingual learners and students with IEPs. "That chart means absolutely nothing to me without subgroup data," she said.

Administrators agreed to break the universal-screener data into subgroups and present disaggregated charts at the March 11 curriculum committee meeting; they said panel items and full recommendation, if any, would follow in late March or early April.

Teachers and principals who piloted the programs reported contrasting strengths: staff said Being a Reader offers a coherent structure and built-in small-group differentiation, while CKLA drew praise for student engagement, shared texts, and culturally responsive content. Concerns about CKLA centered on pacing and the time available for small-group work; administrators said the company advised schools could slow pacing or the district could revise minutes to create time for differentiation.

Board members also raised implementation questions about fidelity and cultural background knowledge on some assessment items; one board member cited an example in which students unfamiliar with a culturally specific term missed an item and asked how the curriculum builds background knowledge.

Presenters said principals and pilot teachers had performed walk-throughs, that principals had seen both programs in action across buildings, and that additional teacher quotes and parent feedback will be included in future materials.

What happens next: the district will present disaggregated screener data, plus parent and student feedback, to the curriculum committee on March 11. Any formal recommendation for adoption would come to the full board for consideration later in March or in April. The board emphasized it will not adopt a program without a clear plan for professional development and differentiated instruction.

"We wouldn't recommend a program for adoption without a plan to address the concerns teachers and principals raised," the presenter said.

The committee meeting where the district will present subgroup analyses was set for March 11; board members said they expect to see grade-level, subgroup, and standards-aligned outcomes before voting.