Dothan board approves Orton‑Gillingham training, LETRS facilitator and one‑year i‑Ready contract amid cost questions

The Dothan City Board of Education voted Feb. 17 to approve three literacy and assessment items recommended by the superintendent: a four-day Orton‑Gillingham professional learning opportunity for up to 50 participants, credentialing a district LETRS facilitator to run cohorts, and a one-year contract for the i‑Ready benchmark assessment.

Mrs. Sherry Corbitt presented the Orton‑Gillingham proposal as an intensive, practical four-day practicum aligned with the science of reading and targeted to 10 schools identified for intensive support. The vendor proposal was described as about $79,000 (not including stipends); including stipends, staff estimated a total in the range of $150,000–$160,000 depending on participant completion of requirements. Corbitt said 45 participants were listed as interested on a returned spreadsheet but could increase once dates were set.

Board members pressed staff on cost and scope. Mrs. Taiisha Walton compared the proposal to a previously discussed Dr. DeWalt contract, saying the Orton‑Gillingham offer would deliver far fewer training hours for a substantial portion of the previous consultant cost. Walton summarized her calculation as the district spending about 47% of the cost of the DeWalt proposal but receiving roughly 4% of the hours DeWalt would have provided. Mrs. Walton also confirmed the funding source would be Title II funds and referenced about $600,000 that must be spent by October.

Mrs. Brenda Guilford and others noted that Orton‑Gillingham training is not a like-for-like substitute for job-embedded consultant support and that the district should view the four-day training as a starting point to build capacity. Dr. Garrick Askew said he recommended approving the training as a beginning step and reiterated that additional, job-embedded work would be required.

On LETRS, Mrs. Corbitt explained LETRS is a two-year, state-recommended training aligned with the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) and the Alabama Literacy Act. The board approved credentialing a district LETRS facilitator so the district can run cohorts year-round and reduce dependence on limited state cohort openings. Corbitt said three full-support schools currently have 16 LETRS-certified teachers and roughly 50 teachers have LETRS training across the 10 targeted schools.

On assessment, staff explained the district’s NWEA MAP contract expires in May and NWEA MAP is not on the updated state-approved vendor list. I‑Ready (Curriculum Associates) appears on the state-approved list for literacy and mathematics and was approved by the board for a one-year term; the state recommends one-year agreements while vendor approvals remain time-limited.

All three items passed by recorded votes with Mr. Scott Childers not present. Several board members asked staff to continue providing cost comparisons and implementation detail as the work proceeds.