Elementary Support System Means Adding Wellness, Cutting Library Specialist

Melrose elementary principals and school administrators want to implement the state's blueprint for aligning class schedules and maximizing their support staff, but in order to do so, they're eliminating the elementary library media specialist to make room for two new wellness teachers.

Principals originally proposed adopting the blueprint, called the Massachusetts Tiered System of Support, during budget deliberations earlier this spring, but there wasn't room in the budget to pay for the additional staff needed to implement it.

Creating an aligned class schedule across each grade level in each school, thereby creating common learning time for students and common planning time for teachers, would require four common specialist subjects. Currently, there are three.

To make room in the budget for two new wellness teachers, making wellness the fourth common specialist subject and allowing for the implementation of the state blueprint, the principals proposed not filling a currently vacant special education teacher position and eliminating the library media specialist. That library specialist is the sole Melrose Schools employee dedicated to the elementary libraries, which also rely on a .

The Melrose School Committee approved the move last night by a 5-1 vote, with Mayor Rob Dolan absent.

On Monday, incoming Superintendent Cyndy Taymore, who takes over for retiring Superintendent Joe Casey on July 1, said that the system goes by different names depending on state—'response to intervention,' 'tiered instruction, or 'targeted instruction,' for example—but is a "well-established best practice" that's in use across the country.

The Massachusetts model emphasizes both intervention and enrichment for students, Taymore said—i.e., supports both struggling students and pushes those achieving at a higher level—adding that she has been implementing it in Bedford for the past three years.

"The principals asked to meet with Joe and me a couple of weeks ago," she said. "They really felt that we needed to find a way to do this."

Scheduling for Common Learning, Planning Time

At its crux, the tiered system is about scheduling, according to Principal Brent Conway. and schedules are more rigidly blocked out, while at the elementary level, the schedule revolves around the specialists—such as physical education, art, music.

"Four to five years ago, those schedules were so haphazard that there was no common instructional time at a grade level and very limited common planning time (for teachers) at a grade level," he said.

Implementing the system would mean an infrastructure and schedule change, Conway said. For example, if there are three third grade classrooms in the school, all those students will go to their specialist at the same time every day of the week. Outside of that 40 minutes of specialist class time, each classroom would be working on the same subjects at the same times of the day.

"They can share students, they can share resources, whether it be special ed teachers, whether it be tutors, whether it be paraprofessionals," he said. "You can move the resources where the needs are. It provides great flexibility in being able to address specific needs that the students have."

Taymore added that PLCs (professional learning communities) or PLNs (professional learning networks) have been adopted as a best practice for teachers and administrators working together to refine instruction, and that the common planning time created by a grade's classrooms all attending a specialist class at the same time will allow Melrose to opportunity to grow that practice.

"More importantly, with the new educator evaluator system there’s an expectation that we’ll be using data to look at how we teach and what students need," she said. "This will also give us time for staff to examine student data, to think about our curriculum and as, Joe said, make those changes to the curriculum that will help students succeed and improve outcomes as a district."

Also, Taymore said one of the challenges with elementary school schedules is teachers setting up their own individual schedules, lending uncertainty as to whether all students are getting the same amount of learning time on a particular content area.

"This will enable us better to build literacy blocks, build math blocks, have dedicated time for the other subjects, so that we can ensure better that there is at least a similarity in experience for all children," she said. "It's an equity issue."

Conway added, "This is infrastructure for equity and a method to meet the needs of all learners."

Making Wellness the Fourth Specialist

Currently, each elementary student has four specialist classes: physical education, music and art being the first three.

The fourth specialist is different at every grade level—the library media specialist teaches two grade levels, health at another grade level, a second art class, Italian and chorus. That varying fourth specialist, due in part to specialists shared between schools, creates a problem for developing an aligned schedule, Conway said.

For example, at the Lincoln School, Conway said he needs three specialists in the building "all day long" so all three classrooms can be freed up at the same time, something not available under the current schedule. With four common specialists in place, K-5 for 40 minutes each day, the rest of the day could be scheduled to allow the common instructional time.

So the plan put forth by the principals eliminates the library media specialist position and a special education position that's currently vacant, replacing those two positions with two new wellness teachers, making wellness the fourth common specialist.

Then, with four common specialists in place, Conway said "that's what will allow us to implement the instructional improvements we need to do."

Casey said that Melrose is "a little bit behind the curve on this," but there's an ongoing movement towards this type of tiered and align instruction. At Tuesday night's School Committee meeting, the principals said that federal law requires this type of structure to provide intervention for students—regardless of how those students are classified in terms of achievement—and that Massachusetts is the last state to get on board.

Why The Library Media Specialist?

Regarding the decision to eliminate the library media specialist position to allow the implementation of the system, Casey acknowledged that "it was not an easy decision to come to, but basically more students are going to benefit from this."

One of the reasons the library specialist was considered, he added, was because of the increased emphasis on literacy at each grade level included in the Common Core national academic standards, .

Conway said that in the previous standards, "information fluency," which would refer to library skills, were a "whole separate component" from the rest of the curriculum.

"In the new Common Core, they’re integrated throughout the entire curriculum," he said. "It falls on the shoulders of the classroom teachers to coordinate the students information fluency, as relative to the content areas."

Principal Mary Alise Herrera said that the network of parent volunteers in the elementary libraries would not discontinue, but administrators are examining how they'll account for the loss of the library specialist's knowledge base that guided those volunteers—and how the elementary libraries align with the Common Core standards.

Among the questions about aligning with the Common Core, Herrera said, are examining literacy as a "deeper model, not as broad," how the library supports that curriculum and what materials are needed to support it.

"That’s kind of our focus this year—we started our realignment of curriculum this year with the Common Core," she said. "Certainly we need to carry that over into the library as well."

Taymore said part of the work in aligning to the new Massachusetts frameworks that incorporate the Common Core standards is a shift to more non-fiction "informational text," beginning as early as in kindergarten.

"One of the conversations we’ve had is: What do we own? And we're not even sure of what we own," she said. "Do we have the right balance, do we have the right materials to support science and social studies non-fiction reading. How are the staff using those materials in their classrooms. We’re looking at this as an opportunity to re-examine all of that and hopefully come forward with a better plan about where our libraries fit not only for the pleasure of reading, but in instruction."

School Committee Reacts

Last night, Conway and Herrera presented the plan to implement the system to the School Committee (PDF of slideshow attached), after having already brought the idea before the committee in February.

Committee member Christine Casatelli asked about benchmarks that would be used to measure student improvement resulting from the new system, and how principals would define proficient readers by the time students leave third grade, one of benchmarks cited as critical by the principals.

Conway said that measuring improvement starts with MCAS scores, but also involves internal assessments, some of which has been done already at the Lincoln School in grades K-2 focusing solely on literacy. He added that the DIBELS literacy assessment, used in Melrose, has a lower national standard than Massachusetts and MCAS, and benchmarks were changed to correlate to MCAS proficiency.

Improvement is expected in year one of the system, Conway continued, but the long-term effects would be seen two to three years from now in first graders or kindergarteners in the system from the get-go.

Herrera added that data analysis would also involve not necessarily looking at a school's overall growth, but pinpointing the progress made by a certain class, outside of any comparison to other children.

Committee member Don Lehman asked about the schools continuing to teach library skills, but classrooms teachers—instead of the library specialist—working on that as part of the literacy block of classroom time.

Conway added that a Melrose Public Schools Advisory Board would inventory all library text for correlation to the Common Core, developed a revised job description of the library specialist and look to build back in next year library specialist positions in new roles and functions.

"The advisory board is going to help us redefine what the future of our libraries is going to look like, with the Common Core, support in place to make them an integral part of our classrooms, and our new curriculum director is going to understand that role," he said.

Committee Chairwoman Kristin Thorp said she bought into the idea for the new system when it was first presented in February, even though the district could not find the money to fund it, and said that "clearly what you’ve given up (the library specialist) is something very important, which says something about how important this is."

On the other side of the aisle, committee member Carrie Kourkoumelis raised concerns such as making the chorus specialist an afterschool program, saying students wouldn't know whether they'd like chorus unless they were first exposed to the program, and that other budget requests for the middle school and high school were "basically ignored" in the budget process.

Also, she noted that adopting the system would be a major change in June, with and a new curriculum director on the way.

Conway said "that's a legitimate concern," but the principals feel the change in leadership is an opportunity for the new principals to jump into a new system, with everyone starting from the same point and working from an equitable scheduling standpoint. As far as the budget process, Conway said that it would be reallocation of current elementary resources for the elementary schools, not additional funds that could've been used at the middle school or high school.

After committee member Margaret Driscoll mentioned meeting with Taymore on Monday on this topic, Kourkoumelis forcefully said that all School Committee members should have been invited to the meeting.

"I’m disturbed to hear this meeting took place in some sort of private setting," she said. "All of us should’ve had the opportunity to avail ourselves us and become educated in the same way you (Driscoll) were allowed to."

Ultimately, while she saw the value in the system, Kourkoumelis said she couldn't support the change at this time due to her concerns.

"I really wonder why this isn't coming about sooner, so we could have much more public involvement in this decision," she said. "Regrettably I won’t (vote in favor), though I very much applaud your efforts and hope that down the road I can support it."

Driscoll, once an elementary library volunteer herself, recalled sitting "on that side of the table" advocating for the creation of the elementary library specialist position. In 2007, before joining the committee, she spoke out against the School Committee cutting the position, which was later reinstated. She lauded the work of current library specialist Ellen D'Ambruoso, while adding that the current set-up is "not a great model" and the intention was not for the library specialist to teach solely to first and third graders.

"However, delivery of services (to students) is the number one priority," she said, adding that the move is "basically driven by unfunded mandates" facing the district. She said that Taymore committed herself and the new curriculum director to developing a plan for library media services, which Melrose has never had before, and stressed the need to not leave the current library volunteers out on a limb.

"This is a hard choice. This is a really difficult choice. If we implement this, we cannot go back to ground zero," Driscoll continued. "These folks cannot be abandoned."