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Staff recommends Wit and Wisdom for Groton middle school ELA; committee agrees to recommend adoption to full board (chair says he will abstain)
Summary
Staff recommended adopting the Wit and Wisdom ELA curriculum for grades 6–8 to align with existing K–5 use, citing EdReports ratings and pilot classroom visits; start‑up costs were estimated at about $100,000 with approximately $30,000 identified from a DoDEA literacy grant. The Curriculum Committee agreed to recommend the change to the Board of Education, with Chair Mitch Shinbrot saying he would abstain.
Anne Marie (staff) recommended that the Groton Board of Education adopt Wit and Wisdom (publisher Great Minds) for grades 6–8 at the May 4 Curriculum Committee meeting, arguing the program would create coherence with the district's K–5 Wit and Wisdom implementation and deliver higher‑quality, standards‑aligned instructional materials for middle school ELA.
Anne Marie said the recommendation followed a multi‑month review: pilot implementations of different resources, vendor presentations (including Great Minds and a My Perspectives representative), classroom visits to see Wit and Wisdom in practice, consultations with other districts and examination of EdReports and other third‑party evaluations. She presented district performance trends that showed declines in middle‑school literacy outcomes since 2019 and said Wit and Wisdom met EdReports' three gateway expectations (text complexity, knowledge building and usability) for grades 6–8.
On implementation, Anne Marie outlined a four‑layer support plan for year one: launch training and module study (late August), two days of co‑planning/co‑teaching with a publisher consultant, two PD days focused on the science of reading, and pacing support. She estimated first‑year start‑up costs at approximately $100,000 (professional development, digital licenses, student texts) and said she was negotiating pricing and looking to apply roughly $30,000 from a DoDEA literacy grant toward the cost.
Committee members asked for supporting evidence and lesson examples. Dr. Andrea Ackerman said she had reservations about the program format and asked to see a middle‑school lesson in practice, noting a preference for short analytic excerpts rather than reading full novels in class. Anne Marie said seventh‑grade teachers who piloted Wit and Wisdom reported high engagement and that staff would arrange classroom observations and share supporting articles and materials.
When the chair asked about action, committee members agreed the next step was to recommend pursuing adoption with the full Board of Education; Chair Mitch Shinbrot said he intended to abstain from that recommendation but the committee agreed to forward the recommendation to the board.
What happens next: staff will share supporting materials, arrange visits to classrooms using Wit and Wisdom where feasible, continue negotiating costs with the publisher, and prepare a recommendation packet for the full Board of Education.
