The St. Vrain Valley Schools Board of Education approved Wednesday the adoption and purchase of a language arts curriculum for elementary schools.
The purchase of ReadyGEN, by Savvas Learning, won’t exceed more than $2.23 million, based on student enrollment for the 2023-24 school year, the district said in a memo. Around $100,000 has been budgeted for initial staff training.
The adoption comes after a pilot program and community outreach that started in the fall of 2021. An adoption committee — comprised of elementary classroom, literacy and special education teachers, in addition to Learning Services personnel — was formed to evaluate language arts materials, test them and recommend the best program to the Board of Education.
To make its decision, the committee reviewed the Colorado Academic Standards, the Colorado Read Act Statute, the district’s current curriculum, feedback from teachers, the Science of Reading and a Colorado Department of Education Advisory List for applicable programs.
The committee came to a consensus on moving forward with ReadyGEN for the pilot program — a curriculum district schools had already been using since 2016. Because teachers and committee members were already familiar with the curriculum, the committee could focus its efforts on the delivery of instruction, said Karen Smith, the district’s elementary language arts coordinator.
“By design, not only does ReadyGEN meet the full depth and breadth and scope of the academic standards, but it establishes cohesion across six grade levels,” Smith told the Board of Education during its regular Wednesday meeting.
The curriculum also used Fundations for younger elementary students — a program that paired well with ReadyGEN, Smith said.
The Colorado Department of Education sent letters in 2022 to school districts, including St. Vrain, calling for the replacement of ReadyGEN, after questions were raised about the program’s efficacy. But the district refuted the department’s assessment, saying the curriculum works well when executed well. The state has since allowed districts to continue using the program.
“We have seen updates and changes from our current version of ReadyGEN into the newer version,” Smith told the board. “The digital platform is far more robust … now we have a program that is fully digitized, with all audio versions of the text.”
Half of the texts in the program have also been updated, Smith said.
The pilot program gathered feedback on ReadyGEN during the 2022-23 school year from 88 teachers and around 2,200 elementary school students of all grade levels.
The teachers determined the program met all Colorado Academic Standards, provided high-quality texts for each grade, reflected diversity, emphasized word recognition skills, created high expectations for students, aligned with the K-3 Colorado Minimum Skills Competencies, offered students consistency, encouraged students to engage in deeper text analysis and taught students different types of writing, according to the district memo.
“Their literacy skills are told and practiced over and over until they know them by heart, instilling in them the confidence and abilities to achieve success,” said Valerie Pelletier, a 3rd grade teacher at Mead Elementary School.
Students who were surveyed also supported the program, Pelletier told the Board of Education. She said ReadyGEN and Fundations give her students independence.
“Even when a student does ask me to spell something unknown or complex, I can give them a prop, such as ‘tap out the sounds,’ ‘what base word or suffix do you hear’ and many others,” Pelletier said.
Cynthia Montanez, a 1st grade biliteracy teacher at Rocky Mountain Elementary School, spoke to the board about ReadyGEN’s approach to students who speak other languages.
“It is the most effective of the programs I’ve taught in my 28 years because of its impact on our biliteracy students,” Montanez said. “This program honors and values students’ native language — this definitely becomes an asset — not a deficit — for our young bilingual students.”
Parents who were surveyed also supported the program, Smith said. Their feedback showed students enjoyed the curriculum and gained independent reading skills and confidence.
All St. Vrain elementary school teachers are scheduled to participate in two separate days of in-person training for the new curriculum in the spring and summer.
