Pelham schools win $90,000 state literacy grant to expand teacher training

Pelham School District will receive a $90,000 competitive literacy grant to expand professional learning for kindergarten through fourth-grade teachers, Assistant Superintendent Sarah Morandos said in a district video. The award is $45,000 per year for two years and is part of the state’s "Bridging the Gap in the 603" cohort, Morandos said.

The grant, Morandos said, partners with the New Hampshire Department of Education’s special education unit and is intended to support schoolwide implementation of evidence-based reading practices. Under the plan, classroom teachers, special educators and administrators will complete Lexia’s Letters training — an eight-unit program on the science of reading — and participate in follow-up grade-level professional learning and coaching.

"We got $90,000. So, $45,000 a year for the next two years," Morandos said. She described an "all-in" approach: "Unless you’ve completed the full Letters training ... our teachers will be completing the full training including our administrators." Morandos said administrators will take part to model professional learning and to build a common language and set of practices across buildings.

District leaders tied the training to existing interventions. Morandos described the district’s "Walk to Learn" intervention — regrouping students three days a week for 30-minute, skill-based sessions — and said the grant will allow the district to use a fuller version of its literacy screener, provide data-analysis training, and bring in live coaches from the state Department of Education to help teachers refine instruction.

As a performance goal, the district is aiming to increase proficiency on its SAS reading measure by 10 percentage points in the tested grades. Morandos said the combination of teacher training, coaching and improved data should move the district toward that target.

Next steps outlined by Morandos include launching a core literacy team (Pelham Elementary School administration, two teachers, two special educators, the district’s ELL teacher, and two half-time coaches including a reading specialist and an instructional coach), recruiting a parent volunteer for family engagement work, and beginning the Letters training immediately. The district hopes to complete the first four of the eight Letters units by the start of the next school year, even though the work continues across the two-year grant.

The video concluded with the host thanking Morandos and viewers for tuning in; no formal board action or vote was recorded on the grant during the segment.