THANK YOU EDUCATORS & BOARD MEMBERS!

While most families were enjoying the summer break, HPISD educators were hard at work! District administrators, Amy Wood, Charlie Jackson, and Mary Webb spent the summer working tirelessly alongside principals, teachers, and consultants to ensure the new literacy program was ready for the start of the school year. The English Language Arts (ELA) Subcommittee, comprised of board members and administrators, also met weekly to lend support and track the progress being made.

The focus this summer was two-fold:

• Curriculum writing, specifically creating “unit maps” that identify when and how to teach required grade level skills, as well as how to assess if students have learned each skill. HPISD educators will continue to work with the ELA consultants to write new unit maps prior to each 9-week grading period this year.
• Professional development about teaching reading for principals and teachers provided by HPISD’s outside consultants Dr. Thea Woodruff and Robyn Hartzell 

Trustee Bryce Benson said, “The teachers were extremely complimentary of the two consultants. They said the training was really valuable and have requested additional training over the course of the fall, which we're going to provide.” 

HPISD LITERACY PARENT MEETING - OCTOBER 6th

HPISD will be sharing more about the district's new approach to literacy on the night of October 6th. Details for the meeting are still being finalized, but parents are encouraged to save the date and make plans to attend.

We greatly appreciate the district creating this opportunity for parents!

NEW RESOURCES

HPISD has developed two new resources for educators and parents to use as guides for ELA instruction.

New HPISD Literacy Framework 

This is an incredible resource for educators and parents alike! The new Framework will help parents better understand what a typical ELA block looks like for their child’s grade (decoding, spelling, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, writing, etc.).

ELA Family Curriculum Guide 

This allows parents to see what students are learning at school during each grading period. The Guide also provides ideas about how to provide support at home.

HPISD is in the process of creating a new Response to Intervention (RTI) Framework that is currently in draft form. This resource is for families with students who are given instruction for reading intervention, dyslexia intervention etc. This document will address how teachers identify specific needs of individual students and how they choose an intervention to match those needs. The document will also detail how teachers will use assessments to track progress on a graph at a minimum of every two weeks to ensure the intervention is effective. The current HPISD Literacy Framework has a section covering some of these subjects beginning on p 50. 

Board members encourage staff and parents to use these new resources as guides when discussing ELA instruction, answering questions, and supporting students.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT IN HPISD

In addition to the work of aligning literacy instruction with the Science of Reading, HPISD trustees are also working to improve the district in other key areas.

HPISD plans to create an Online Dashboard for Student Achievement as a tool to improve communication with parents. This new dashboard will show multiple key academic measures, both historically in HPISD and comparatively with peer districts. Both areas of strength and areas that need improvement will be displayed on the new dashboard.

To improve writing skills in Kindergarten through 12th grade, the district is developing a plan to assess student writing at each grade level. While it's still early, the plan will be completed this year and implementation should begin by the end of this school year.

While the recent focus of the Education Services Committee has been literacy, trustees have identified math instruction, particularly in grades 5th through 8th, as an area that needs improvement. HPISD plans to hire an outside math consultant who will assist district educators similarly to how the literacy consultants have helped to guide changes in the area of English Language Arts.