While many families spent the summer vacationing and relaxing, almost every Needham elementary school teacher, 12 literacy specialists and three coaches took part in voluntary literacy personal development. As the district begins its third year of testing and selecting a new curriculum, Director of Literacy Lisa Messina told the School Committee at their Oct. 7 meeting that they will have a final recommendation in February for the program all students will use beginning in fall 2026.
Last school year, many K-2 teachers opted to pilot one of five curricula. Of those, Fishtank, ARC and Collaborative Classroom moved to the final round.
“Remember our purpose here is to really think about how to improve outcomes for all students, and especially help us close some opportunity gaps that we see year upon year,” said Messina. “For each of these programs we have very particular things that we feel like we need to understand this year in order to make a smart decision about our final selection.”
The programs share some key similarities, most importantly their adherence to the district’s ELA literacy standards and endorsement by The Reading League or CURATE. All three also teach both reading and writing.
“Every program has non-negotiables,” Carmen Williams, assistant superintendent for instruction and innovation, told the Observer. “(They’re) aligned to the science of reading, Massachusetts academic frameworks and structures, pedagogy that is universally designed and inclusive. If it didn’t have that, it wouldn’t be part of the process.”
The programs also share common components, but how those components are delivered and assessed is where they diverge. For example, each curriculum includes small group time, but the purpose of that time and the way it is structured varies. Also, ARC and Collaborative Classroom integrate foundational skills such as phonics, whereas Fishtank requires a separate program such as the long-used Fundations to teach those skills.
“The content to teach reading is very different across the programs,” said Williams. “There are enough differences that we should be serious about choosing the one that will be the best fit.”
Messina said they had hoped to make a decision last year, but there were still a number of unanswered questions they wanted to use the extra months to answer. The first part of this school year will be spent continuing to gather educator feedback, reviewing student work samples, observing classroom teaching and hosting focus groups to understand how the different programs work with different populations of learners. The district will also evaluate assessment data to see how students are performing with the various curricula.
As in the past, teachers were able to select the program they wanted to pilot, with pretty even representation for each curriculum. “We wanted to make sure we had a glimpse of each program in every building across every grade level as possible,” said Williams.
There was a huge push to get teachers up to speed and ready to go for the first day of school and be prepared for what’s coming next in order to offer “the best to our students,” Williams explained. She said it feels like the stakes are higher. “I think there’s a heightened awareness that everyone is watching, and we want to do our best.”
Williams said a vocal group of parents called the Needham Literacy Coalition, who called for the immediate removal of the then-used Units of Study curriculum without following a rigorous, evidence-based process, made the work more challenging for teachers. “Teachers take their jobs very seriously,” she said. “Their integrity was being questioned. That was a lot. They work really hard to serve their community, and that was tough.” She said she has not heard from the coalition recently.
After just one year, Williams said they are already seeing results. “Even though we were piloting literacy last year, our elementary ELA scores went up by six percentage points.” The state only had a 1% growth. “We already know we outpace the state average in everything, but a 6% growth is still significant in a year where we were piloting programs.”
Williams said she is excited to share more detailed assessment data at the next School Committee meeting Oct. 21.
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