School committee approves 8th-grade information-literacy pilot

The Longmeadow School Committee voted unanimously July 28 to approve a pilot information-literacy course for a select cohort of 8th-grade students at Williams and Glenbrook Middle Schools.

Beth Nelson, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction, told the committee the course would teach students database navigation, academic research, digital citizenship and AI ethics and that the pilot would be offered to students who otherwise have an explore study-hall period. "Digital information is everywhere — artificial intelligence, media bias," Nelson said, arguing the course would give students concrete research and evaluation skills.

Nelson said the course would be teacher-created for the coming year, with the library media specialist delivering instruction and using existing digital resources. She said the district plans to use a portion of recently received Title IV funds to pay for professional development and curriculum writing and that the pilot would be assessed on a pass/fail basis while staff collect feedback from students and educators.

Committee members asked about cost and scheduling friction. One member said curriculum development can be expensive; Nelson responded that, for the pilot year, the course would be built with existing staff resources and digital library subscriptions, so she did not anticipate a large upfront adoption expense. Nelson also described how the program would be coordinated with ELA, science and social studies projects to avoid duplication.

The committee approved a motion to adopt the pilot and authorized scheduling for the 2026–27 school year. Next steps identified by the committee include convening a finance subcommittee to review any resource implications and gathering feedback over the pilot year to inform a broader rollout in subsequent years.