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What a difference a year makes.
It was just a year ago a Boston Globe article claiming a new report showed that “a climate of deep mistrust” was stymying early literacy instruction in Winchester. The article set off a firestorm of complaints and concerns regarding the district’s elementary literacy program.
But elementary school educators in the Early Literacy Team lined up at a recent School Committee meeting, bringing an update that included a lot of energy, excitement and plans to pilot two new curriculum in the fall.
Muraco Elementary School Principal Leslie West said there was an overwhelming number of teachers who wanted to pilot the new curriculum, “but of course, we couldn’t have everybody.”
West said 20 classrooms would pilot EL Education and 21 classrooms would pilot the Arts & Letters program. Both groups of piloteers include special education and English learners students in the mix.
West said it was also important to note that each school has two or three grade levels piloting the curriculum and the schools will pilot both EL and Arts & Letters.
“So, for example, Lynch third grade is piloting Arts & Letters, and fifth grade is piloting EL so they’ll be able to kind of see the difference between the two of them,” she explained.
Once the pilot programs are up and running, teachers will use a CURATE rubric, which stands for Curriculum Rating by Teachers, to evaluate the programs. They will be measuring the accessibility for students, classroom tasks and instruction, text quality and organization and usability for teachers, West said.
They will also “dive deep into professional development to get a solid understanding of which program best aligns with the students in Winchester and what their needs are,” she added.
West said they expect that by February or March of 2026, they will determine which pilot will be adopted.
“It’s an exciting process,” she said.
Educators also discussed the literacy vision statement that includes nurturing creative, joyous, critical thinkers. But, according to Kathleen Caron, principal of Vincent-Owen School, it also includes data and a strong MTSS or multi-tiered systems of support.
“Basically what that means is that we’re looking closely at data and we’re making informed instructional decisions based on how our students are responding to our teaching,” she said. “So we teach, we assess, we look at the data and we say, ‘OK, how is everyone doing?’”
The vision statement also talks about making sure that creativity and autonomy, the actual craft of teaching, doesn’t get lost in the mix and “very importantly to continue to foster a culture of trust,” Caron said.
Trust between teachers, teachers and administrators and families, “so we’re being very transparent,” she said.
Educators also talked about the shift to a knowledge-based literacy curriculum, and how it aligns with the district’s broader vision. Knowledge building curriculum, such as the new pilot programs, connect students to content across various subject areas allowing students to build their knowledge over time.
Literacy specialist Morgan Doney said that shift is important.
“It ensures that every student, regardless of their background, has a common, high quality learning experience, so students will engage in topics about science, social studies and the arts by being exposed to content specific vocabulary,” Doney said.
School Committee member Stephanie Mnayarji called the update a joy for the community and said she loved seeing all five elementary principals in the same room together.
“And I hope you were all comfortable coming, because we’re totally gonna make you do it again,” she quipped.
Mnayarji wondered if parents would be altered if their child happened to be among the piloteers, but Kirby said she wasn’t sure what the benefit of that would be. West said the plan is to build up all educators and she wants everyone to feel comfortable regardless if their child is in the pilot or not.
“No child is going to be less than or if you’re in the pilot, you’re good, if you’re not you’re a guinea pig,” she said. “Because we really know what solid good literacy practice is, and we’ve learned so much about that this year … we will all be working collaboratively. And that was the power of this team.”
Committee member Michelle Bergstrom thanked the Early Literacy Team for taking the time to do site visits, to see how various curriculums were working in other schools.
“I’m already super excited and super confident about the programs that you’ve chosen because you’ve seen them in action,” she said.
And she thanked the teachers who were chosen to pilot the new curriculum. She likened it to being a first time teacher all over again, exciting yet challenging and it would include a mountain of work.
Like all the committee members, Tom Hopcroft praised the committee for a job well done. He said he recognized that change is “really, really hard,” but that the Early Literacy Team made it look joyful.
“So I hope there is joy in it, but I recognize that it’s a lot of hard work,” he said.
Caron called the group lucky.
“We’ve been provided with a full year pilot for both of the programs, it’s almost unheard of,” she said. “I mean, the amount of support that we’re getting is incredible, and we’re all really lucky to be part of it.”
