River Forest is not a place where having 35% of the district students not meeting state expectations for literacy is acceptable.
That is the message parents are sending the school district as it moves forward with a total review of the reading curriculum in hopes of finding a better program to fit the needs of their students.
Ted Perlstein, a father of two kids, spoke during the public comment portion of the Literacy Instruction Forum, held Dec. 5 at Roosevelt Middle school.
“This is a literacy on fire moment,” Perlstein said. “35 out of 100, we have 40 people in this room. About 15 people in this room wouldn’t meet the state guidelines for literacy. That is crazy.”
Perlstein was referring to the proficiency rate for the River Forest School District 90’s Illinois Report Card, which scored the district at 65.9% for 2023, which was still higher than the state’s average of 34.6%, as well as an improvement from their 2022 rate of 61.6%.
Supt. Edward Condon told attending parents that the district was also not content with the score.
“Part of our district mission is that we are trying to ensure that every child can achieve to the very highest of their ability and we take that seriously,” Condon said. “We can compare district to state performance level, we can compare the district to other districts … but the reality is that we are not satisfied with our performance rates, even though they show growth, and we know there is still work to do.”
Perlstein was just one of the many parents that attended the forum organized by the district.
The insistence comes as part of a national pushback against the widely used curriculum, Units of Study, which gained popularity in the ‘90s, becoming the primary way for teachers and graduate schools of education to teach children to read across the nation.
With this curriculum, developed by Columbia University teaching professor Lucy Calkins’, teachers focused on the idea that children are naturally curious and would use inquiry-based methods to learn to read.
But as more research demonstrated that it wasn’t the ideal way to teach reading, many began questioning its effectiveness, saying the curriculum was not all it was cracked up to be.
A movement to bring back the “science of reading” began to take place, focusing on teaching children to read through phonics, a sequenced introduction to the sounds and letter combinations used in the English language.
D90 was not spared from criticism, with many parents voicing their concerns throughout the past months during the public comment portion of board meetings.
The purpose of the forum was to facilitate a discussion about the reading curriculum used by the district and to increase understanding around literacy guidelines amongst the people who are the most invested in the topic, district parents, said Supt. Edward Condon.
“We are really hoping that the information you are willing to share with us will inform some of the decisions in the process moving forward that our literacy committee will be pursuing in the upcoming months,” Condon said.
Structured into three parts, the district used the beginning portion to provide a level set presentation to parents, explaining where they currently are and what the review process entails.
Alison Hawley, assistant superintendent of instruction, provided a rundown of the curriculum used, an explanation of how the district reviews the new curriculum, and provided the six components of effective literacy instruction that the district looks for in the new curriculum.
In the presentation, Hawley explained that the district uses Units of Study for Teaching Reading from kindergarten through eighth grade, but emphasized that they always recognized it was not a “stand alone” program, hence their use of additional programs to supplement it.
Hawley also said they are emphasizing the consideration for all learners, which can be portrayed by having “high-quality, diverse materials, access to engagement with text, print-immersive, language-rich, and content-rich environments, and support for home language and bilingualism.”
“We have a range of learners in our district,” Hawley said. “We need to be able to be flexible and differentiate and support all of our students. And we have a growing EL population in District 90 … that population deserves to be seen and heard and supported as well.”
The second portion of the forum allowed parents, who had been divided into groups – each with a board member and school administrator present- to speak on their experiences, ask questions, and facilitate discussion while answering the questions provided by the district. According to Condon, these answers will be reviewed by the D90 Literacy Committee.
Corina Davis, a district parent, said she appreciated the chance to dive deeper into the topic and their concerns amongst other parents.
“I didn’t know what to expect coming in and I felt it was really helpful,” Davis said. “The format of five questions to discuss really focused our conversation. There was a wide range of opinions and viewpoints at our table which informed me and others of how community members think about this issue.”
Concerns were also submitted and addressed there, including one referencing the size of the committee — over 30 people — saying it was too big to be effective.
“We have had different size committees in the district at different times for different reasons,” Condon said, adding the size for the committee is deemed appropriate as the district wants to be able to include teachers and having more participation ensures a variety of opinion across different grade levels. “We need to ensure that when the final decision is made, it is owned, collectively by faculty and staff.”
According to Hawley, the committee operates with sub-committees, splitting up the members and making it easier to process information, helping them cover all their bases and have thorough research to help make the important decisions.
Sheba Chiplunkar, a physician and district parent, agrees with Perlstein, saying River Forest is an affluent community and having 35% of students scoring as not proficient is not acceptable. Chiplunkar said the district needs a curriculum that is evidence based.
“I want to make sure that our district is going forward and not backwards,” Chiplunkar said. “We don’t want to rush the process, but the process has been vetted before with other districts. We just have to find what fits us.”
For now, Condon said parents can expect the district to continue with their current curriculum through the end of the school year while the committee works on picking two programs which would be piloted next year, with a new curriculum in place by January 2025.