New books, multicultural stories, writing materials and online learning guides are all part of two new packages for the English/Language Arts curriculum the District 153 board approved at its May 11 meeting.
Kindergarten through sixth grade students will use a Benchmark Literacy Program. The package costs $250,000. Seventh and eighth graders at James Hart School will use Best In Class, an integrated writing and reading program requiring primarily online work. That package costs $50,000.
The district is using federal Title I funds to pay for the purchases.
Board members told Kathy Schaeflein, curriculum director, that they are happy to have a reading program that will be consistent throughout the lower grades. Currently, four different programs are used. Board members also commended her for looking for programs that had materials focused on multiculturalism, which best reflects the district.
Schaeflein said the last time the district looked at ELA materials was five years ago, although the third and fourth grades didn’t update and are using instruction materials that are at least 10 years old. She added that materials used by third through eighth graders “have not stood the test of time and electronic learning components are not as good as what we are adopting.”
The district started investigating a new ELA series this fall and was about to do a trial run when schools were closed in mid-March. The timing did work to the district’s advantage, though, because teachers got to use all the online tools that come with the two packages.
She surveyed teachers and made her recommendation to the board based on their approval of the materials.
In other business, the board agreed to move to online registration for the fall. Tim Noe in the technology department put the switch from paper to online on the fast track. Registration will open June 15 through the district website.
The board will reimburse Kickert Bus at 60 percent of the contract for the last few months of this school year. The Illinois State Board of Education asked school districts to pay transportation providers to keep paychecks flowing to bus drivers. ISBE reimburses districts for a share of the costs.
Seven new faculty members will be joining the district in August. Superintendent Dale Mitchell said administrators used online recruiting and Zoom meetings to finalize candidate selections.
At the close of the meeting, Board President Shelly Marks thanked District 153 staff, families and students “for rolling with the punches so amazingly with so much spirit of can do and willingness to make it happen. We’ve always known this is a special place. It’s never been more evident since we entered this interesting time.”