Hiawatha board to submit school improvement plan focusing on structured literacy

District staff on Monday asked the Hiawatha School District Board of Education to approve an action plan that centers on structured literacy as the district’s primary school-improvement focus.

Laurie (district staff, literacy lead) told the board structured literacy aligns classroom instruction with the research known as the Science of Reading and stressed that “if we are following and we're teaching with the practices of structured literacy, then that means everything that we're doing is evidence based and aligned with the science of reading.” She said the approach is intended to improve reading outcomes across grades and to provide a common instructional language for teachers.

Laurie outlined the professional learning rollout and targets: two LETRS volumes with modules, roughly 12 hours per unit; 35 teachers in Volume 1, including three early-childhood teachers scheduled to finish next month, and about 32 staff participating in an alternative program aligned to structured-literacy principles. Two local certified facilitators were named as part of the plan’s support structure: Gretchen Oldham and Molly Stratton. The district’s target is for the Volume 1 cohort to finish by May and for facilitator training to resume in June.

Speaker 1 noted a state-related deadline for submitting the action plan and asked the board to approve sending the plan to the KFCE; Laurie said the district must submit by January to meet the cycle calendar. Board members asked about certification and licensure timelines; Laurie said the Seal of Literacy requirement is in place and noted one compliance path requires completion by 2028.

The board moved to submit the action plan and supportive revenue/action items tied to implementation were recorded as approved during the meeting. The presentation included measures of progress and local targets the district will track; staff committed to returning with progress data at the end of the school year.