Web Elementary principal outlines literacy overhaul as iRead and OG scores rise

Carolyn Ray, principal of Web Elementary, told the Franklin Community School Corp school board that the school reorganized its intervention staffing to group students by instructional need rather than by special-education or Title label, and that the change is producing measurable gains.

"We were going to really just have an intervention team," Ray said, introducing Mrs. Sandre Hasslam (Title I instructor) and Mrs. Emily Flack (literacy coach). She described moving from larger groups of four to six students down to two- or one-on-one groupings for targeted instruction, using Orton-Gillingham phonics for word-recognition work.

Ray provided student-level examples and district measures to illustrate results: kindergarten students moved from midyear scores around 12 to averages near 37.9 after intervention changes; several individual students were cited as moving from 0→7, 0→13 and 0→17 on key measures. She reported a second-grade iRead pass rate of 55.7 (39 of 70 students) and said staff planned retesting for about 20 students. For third grade Ray reported an 88% pass rate (43 of 49 students) and said six remaining students were receiving intensive tier 1–2–3 interventions, including one-on-one instruction.

Ray described operational details: tier two runs 30 minutes, tier three runs 30 minutes, and tier one instruction is 60–90 minutes; the Orton-Gillingham one-on-one phonics block is 30 minutes. She also described using a Branigan grant to support a retired teacher (named in the transcript as Sher/Sherry Smith) who provides roughly 3–4 hours of targeted intervention.

To preserve time for science and social studies, the school designated Wednesdays as a focused non-fiction day that pairs reading about science/social studies with hands-on experiment work; math tier 2 interventions are also scheduled on Wednesdays. Ray said the school recorded a 68% reduction in behavior calls comparing quarter 1 of the prior school year to quarter 1 of the current school year, attributing that change to consistent PBIS practices ("spider cards," buddy-classroom rotations and a buildingwide student-support team).

Ray invited board members to tour classrooms; the board observed OG lessons, reflex-math pilots, Book Taco literacy incentives and special-program classrooms during the visit. Ray said preschool moving to a new building next year will free classroom space and allow some grade-level relocations in the building.

The school’s next steps include retesting eligible students in May (and June for third grade, as permitted), offering summer school for students who still do not meet benchmarks, and continuing to refine schedule and staffing to protect intervention time.