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District ELA pilot recommends Amplify ELA for grades 6–8 after multi-site trial
Summary
After a multi-site pilot comparing Amplify ELA and Savvas MyPerspectives, the district's ELA team recommended Amplify for its writing focus, differentiated entry points, digital/print balance and universal-access features; staff will return standards-mastery data for board consideration at the next meeting.
District staff presented the results of a two-program pilot for 6th–8th grade English Language Arts and recommended Amplify ELA as the preferred core program. Kara Schwinn, general education program specialist, summarized the process: prescreening state‑approved programs, narrowing to finalists, piloting units across schools and collecting teacher, student and parent feedback.
Chris Frick, a middle-school ELA teacher who led classroom implementation, described classroom experience: "Amplify is, really amazing...there's extensive journaling...the quests were immersive and students were very engaged." Staff cited improvements in student engagement, purposeful writing through journals, and strong universal-access scaffolds for EL and special-education students. Pilot data cited included increases in English‑learner progress (reported as +14.2 points during the presentation) and gains in ELA and mathematics points mentioned in the school presentation context.
Board members asked for comparative standards-mastery data by site before a vote. Kara said that staff would provide standards-mastery summaries and other pilot evidence by email and return an action item and formal vote at the next meeting. Trustees raised specific concerns about screen time and the appropriate use of audio/read-along features for students who will take state assessments without read-aloud accommodations; presenters said Amplify provides both hard-copy novels and digital libraries and that choices about audio and scaffolds can be classroom-level instructional decisions.
The team stressed that their recommendation was data-driven and focused on writing instruction, universal access and standards alignment; no final board adoption vote occurred at this meeting.
