George Elementary principal highlights literacy gains and student goal‑setting

Laura Villafado, principal at George Elementary, presented the school's improvement work and told the board that a new HMH structured literacy curriculum for kindergarten and first grade and targeted interventions are producing measurable gains.

"I'm Laura Villafado, the principal here at George," she told the board as she described using a diagnostic decoding survey (DDS) to identify decoding gaps and guide interventions. Villafado said the school uses syllabication instruction and other structured literacy practices to strengthen foundational decoding skills and that students who were emergent readers are receiving targeted supports.

Villafado said the school tracks progress with graphs showing the number of students requiring intervention decreased between September and March and emphasized the districtwide shift to K–12 decoding screening and phonics interventions such as Really Great Reading. She added that in‑person services are particularly important for young and multilingual learners: "It's really hard...with especially little and bilingual students...on a screen with a 5 year old trying to tell them where to place their tongue is really hard," she said.

As part of the report, Villafado introduced second grader Giovanni Lopez, who described a class performance task about the Arctic fox and shared what he learned. The principal also described efforts to increase parent engagement through events such as family nights and a father‑daughter dance, which she said increased volunteer participation.

Board members applauded the reported results and asked how the DDS compares to other assessments; the principal and district staff said DDS focuses on decoding (phonics and phonemic awareness) and that fluency is assessed separately. The school's approach will continue to be monitored through the year and connected with professional learning for teachers.

The board received the report and moved on to other district business.