McGraw Hill project managers tell Eastern York board coaching is boosting classroom practice, but technical bugs cloud assessments

McGraw Hill representatives described a project-management pilot they say is narrowing the gap between curriculum adoption and classroom practice while coaches work with teachers across Eastern York schools.

“Project management started in the district around October,” Liz Jervesy, the K–5 project manager, told the board in a recorded presentation. She said McGraw Hill has provided 32 on-site coaching days so far — 11 at Canonley, 10 at Crates Creek and 11 at Wrightsville — and described a cycle of pre-meets, in-class modeling and debriefs that include data conversations with teachers and students.

Judy Thumborth, regional vice president of professional services for McGraw Hill, framed the team’s role as helping teachers use digital tools and data more effectively and supporting principals to build coherence across grade levels. “The goal there was really to help bridge the gap between adoption and effective classroom instruction,” she said.

Lisa Sigell, who works with middle and high school teachers, described efforts to strengthen small-group instruction, student ownership of data and vertical articulation from kindergarten through grade 12. She said she typically spends three to four days at the middle school and three to four days at the high school during coaching cycles and keeps an interactive Google Doc of notes and next steps.

Board members raised questions about the program’s scale and cost. One member noted the district spent $50,000 for two project managers and asked whether other districts use a similar model; Judy Thumborth said some districts — including Baltimore City and parts of Rhode Island — employ project managers but many rely on regional curriculum specialists.

More sharply, several board members pressed presenters about technical problems with the district’s digital assessment platforms. “We’ve had examples of right answers marked wrong and wrong answers marked right,” a board member said, asking how systemic the issue was. The board said teachers and students have reported incorrect scoring, inappropriate recommendations, and partial-credit errors.

District IT leadership was reported to be working directly with the platform’s technical team. According to the discussion, the CTO told the board the vendor is validating fixes and aims to push releases by the end of the month to correct incorrect answers, tagging issues and partial-credit logic. Administrators said the district will watch the vendor’s fixes and asked for evidence the problems are resolved before further, larger-scale adoption decisions.

Board members asked for more student input and survey results; presenters said student surveys are in progress and that the district hopes to review results in April or May. Several trustees also proposed showcasing student examples (elementary, middle and high school) at a future meeting to better understand the student experience.

The board did not take a formal vote on the pilot during the meeting. Administrators said they will return with updated technical validation from the vendor and the results of ongoing student and teacher surveys as the district evaluates longer-term adoption choices.

Ending: The board moved on to other agenda items after the presentation; several trustees asked administration to track the vendor fixes and to report back at the April meeting with evidence the technical issues have been resolved.