A team of nearly 100 teachers and administrators at Oswego-based Community Unit School District 308 are recommending the district spend about $3.6 million over the next six years to purchase new materials to teach students reading and writing skills.
If approved by the school board, the new workbooks, textbooks and digital tools would show up in classrooms this fall.
The team that looked at the district’s English language arts curriculum began meeting last February to figure out what materials were needed in the district to meet the state’s five-year-old Common Core reading standards, which are aimed at better helping students get ready for college or the workforce.
The Common Core standards have shifted some of the ways reading, writing and other English-language skills are taught in classrooms and District 308 teachers said they took those changes into consideration as they evaluated possible materials.
Students are expected to read nonfiction texts as much as literary ones and teachers are encouraged to integrate reading with other subjects, such as science and social studies.
Students also are supposed to read at higher levels in each grade, read more closely and be able to discuss and analyze what they’ve read.
“We’re not just changing a curriculum, you’re changing a culture,” Superintendent Matthew Wendt said.
Other districts in the area have already adopted new materials to help students meet the new reading standards, but District 308 officials said they decided to wait until materials seemed to better incorporate the Common Core standards.
District 308 elementary schools haven’t adopted new reading materials since 2005, district officials said. The junior high and high schools haven’t in two decades, officials estimated.
Last spring, a team of teachers and administrators recommended new math materials that were estimated to cost $1.5 million over five years. Teachers began using that new Common Core curriculum this past fall.
After looking at nine potential resources and piloting two, elementary school teachers and administrators are recommending the district purchase ReadyGEN 2.0 by Pearson Education, which comes with six years of digital access, student workbooks, teacher support materials and training for teachers.
If approved, the district would spend about $2.9 million on elementary reading materials over the next six years. About $83,000 a year would go toward materials students can write in and that would need to be replaced annually.
After looking at five potential resources for the junior highs and four possible texts for the high schools, teachers and administrators are recommending SpringBoard by The College Board, which administers the SAT and Advanced Placement exams.
If approved by the school board, the reading materials would cost just under $1.2 million over six years, with about $189,000 a year spent on replacing student workbooks each year. The purchase comes with online versions of the materials for students and teachers, as well as teacher training.
The junior highs and high schools did not test out the materials for several weeks in their classrooms before making their decision, officials said, unlike teachers at the elementary schools. The committee decided a pilot for the upper grades wasn’t needed, an official said.
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Board Vice President Alison Swanson, who is a science teacher at West Aurora High School, said she and other members of the school board’s curriculum committee had some concerns that the materials weren’t tested out in junior high and high school classrooms and that many of the materials would need to be replaced on an annual basis.
The committee also had concerns over whether the textbooks were actually aligned to the Common Core and were worth the millions the district would spend on them, and if a textbook by the College Board would be a better fit for higher-achievers, but not struggling students.
Lisa Smith, the district’s director of elementary education, said teachers would have to make adjustments to fit the needs of their students, regardless of what text was chosen.
“There’s no one perfect resource,” Smith said.
A district official said the College Board text had helped struggling students in another district that used the resource to raise their abilities and encouraged more students to take AP classes.
Board member Mike McDowell and Swanson both asked if any teachers weren’t on board with the recommendations. Smith said the teams had reached a consensus, but not every single team member had voted for the final recommendations.
McDowell said he hoped “no one was bullied” into choosing the presented books and hoped that those who didn’t agree had felt free to express their opinions.
The books and other materials will be on display for the next month at the District Administrative Center in Oswego. The school board is scheduled to vote on whether to adopt the materials on April 27.
If the materials are approved, teachers would receive training on them over the summer, while they continue to work on common tests to accompany the materials.