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District reports 227 students on personalized reading plans under Act 20; UFLI phonics will be expanded
Summary
Title I staff told the board that, in the first year of Act 20 implementation the district created 227 personal reading plans and found 41.6% of 4K'03 students below the 25th percentile; the district will expand UFLI phonics instruction and track summer school effects.
Title I instructors Jody Peterson and Nikki Tesh presented the New London School District's first-year Act 20 implementation report at the board's July 1 meeting, saying the district identified 227 students who received personal reading plans and that 41.6% of students in 4K through 3rd grade scored below the 25th percentile on the required universal screening.
"We had 227 students district wide that had a personal reading plan," Jody Peterson said, summarizing the data the district submitted to the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). She said 27 students exited reading plans between winter and spring screening and that the district is offering intensive summer school to students on plans; 57 students were attending summer school at the time of the report.
The presentation described how the district met Act 20 requirements on instruction and monitoring: universal screening with AIMSwebPlus (the DPI-mandated screener), progress monitoring with FastBridge, multi-tier supports (Tier 1 whole-class instruction; Tier 2 small-group interventions; Tier 3 intensive pull-out services), and required professional development for K'3 staff. Peterson said the district used the Keys to Literacy professional development across grade levels and that special education and bilingual staff participated.
Nikki Tesh, the district reading specialist, outlined the fall plan to build a strategic literacy plan with CESA 6 and to check curriculum fidelity in Schoolcase. She said the district will implement the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) resource more broadly: Title and special education staff previously used UFLI as a Tier 2/3 intervention, and the district plans to adopt some UFLI components as Tier 1 classroom routines to strengthen phonics and phonemic awareness.
"UFLI comes from University of Florida Literacy Institute," Nikki Tesh said, describing the program's structured approach to letter sounds, blending and explicit phonics instruction and how it can be used in whole-group lessons and small-group interventions.
Board members asked about staffing and intervention capacity; Tesh said the district has a full-time interventionist at Parkview, Lincoln and Sugarbush, a part-time tutor position at Reedfield, and a full-time interventionist at the middle school'for a total equivalent of about 4.5 interventionist roles across buildings. Peterson and Tesh said the Title team will lead in-service training at the start of the school year and monitor student progress with frequent fidelity checks.
The report included building-level details: Lincoln had about 48.6% of its K' students below the 25th percentile, Parkview 39%, Sugarbush 47.2%, and Reedfield about 28.2% (counts and percentages were presented for each building). District leaders emphasized that different buildings showed different grade-level patterns and said that next steps focus on tiered instruction and family engagement to support reading at home.
The board did not take formal action beyond receiving the report. District staff said they will continue tracking summer school outcomes and report fall screening and progress-monitoring data after classes resume.
