SCCPSS kicks off literacy teacher training with fanfare and film screening

Alfred E. Beach High School’s Richard R. Mole auditorium buzzed to life early Friday, Oct. 6. The event was part of Savannah-Chatham County Public School System’s (SCCPSS) Literacy Kickoff. Thing 1 and Thing 2 along with the Cat and the Hat danced alongside School Board President Roger Moss and educators as they filed into the auditorium.

From the heady atmosphere at the start and the showing of literacy activist Kareem Weaver’s The Right to Read to the detailed action plan of implementing LETRS training for teachers, the whole experience amounted to equal parts Apple product launch and pep rally.

Superintendent’s call to action

Superintendent Denise Watts, Ed.D., spoke ahead of the film screening and admitted that SCCPSS needs to do more. “We do not have every single student reading on grade level. We can't have book rallies and expect the fun and excitement from those to instill in students the ability to read. We know that reading is not a natural process.”

She highlighted the need for evidence-based methods of teaching reading. “We all drank the Lucy Calkins Kool-Aid,” Watts said. “And the pendulum swung too far to one side.” Lucy Calkins is the Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP) at Columbia University. Her work led the Balanced Literacy or Whole Language movement, which became the prevalent method for teaching literacy across most of U.S. elementary schools. This despite research results provided by the National Reading Panel of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in 1999. Those results indicated that phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, guided oral reading, vocabulary words and reading comprehension strategies were integral in teaching children how to read.

Watts stressed that students have the right to properly trained teachers. Speaking directly to educators, she said, “You cannot use any tool in the toolbox. As a central office team, as principals and leaders in this district, as School Board members, we have to create the conditions so that you can be successful. Learning how to read is the civil rights issue of our time and we must do better when we know better.”

Regarding toolboxes, Watts was referring to the Lexia Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS). SCCPSS recently approved the $2,726,050 Purchase of LETRS training for all K-5 teachers and district administrators.

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Right To Read screened for teachers

Watts’s speech was followed by the documentary The Right to Read, directed by Jenny Mackenzie and produced, in part, by LeVar Burton, who hosted PBS' Reading Rainbow for 21 seasons. The film features educator and activist Kareem Weaver on his journey to change the literacy instruction policies of the Oakland Unified School District. Weaver’s and the film’s central argument is that the right to read is this generations civil rights imperative. He said at one point in the film, “When you tell me that you choosing not to follow the research, you are choosing not to follow the science, your graduate schools are choosing it, your school systems are choosing it, the individual teachers are choosing it, and then when it doesn’t work out and the kids can’t read you come back and blame them…that is a violation of kids’ civil rights.”

Friday’s screening of The Right to Read is unique. The film cannot be found on Netflix or other common streaming providers. The licensing to screen the documentary for SCCPSS educators was made possible by the Chatham Education Alliance (CEA). The education nonprofit will also be making the documentary available to the greater public at 7 p.m., Nov. 13, at the Lucas Theatre, 32 Abercorn St. A Q&A with Weaver will follow that screening. It is free to the public and takes place as part of CEA’s Chatham County Literacy Week, Nov. 12-18.

Weaver will also be appearing Nov. 14 at the Charles Morris Center for a Southeast Georgia Leadership Forum’s In The Boardroom session. The session will be from Noon to 2 p.m., has limited seating available and costs $45 to attend.

LETRS Training unveiled for teachers

Friday’s Literacy Kickoff was organized by the SCCPSS Division of Academic Affairs as part of the LETRS training launch. Director of Curriculum Programming Andrea Burkiett lead a discussion after the screening. Aligning with Watts’s comments on creating conditions for teacher success, Burkiett shared a real-time survey that asked, “Do you feel equipped as an educator to teach reading foundational skills to your students?”

Nearly 420 educators scanned the QR code and responded. Roughly 70% or 294 of the respondents check that they felt “Somewhat” or “Not at all” equipped.

Cherie Goldman, from Hesse K-8 school, then spoke about collective teacher efficacy, or a group’s belief in their combined skills to positively affect student outcomes. Goldman was the 2021 SCCPSS District Teacher of the Year. She was also the 2022 Georgia Teacher of the Year when she was asked to serve on the Georgia Department of Education taskforce on teacher burnout, which released the University of Georgia Carl Vinson Institute of Government Teacher Burnout in Georgia report.

One key takeaway from that report was that organizational problems require organizational solutions. She said that this concept was extremely important when it came to the challenge of teaching literacy. “What one teacher does or does not do in his or her classroom impacts the next teacher and the next teacher on down the line,” she said.

LETRS training is intended to provide SCCPSS’s sought after collective efficacy on the challenge of literacy. Burkiett shared what teachers should expect when their training starts in January for K-3 schools and some K-5 schools. “The next phase will be all fourth and fifth grade teachers and all of our pre-K teachers,” said Burkiett. She also detailed potential stipends and incentives as teachers completed the training.

Goldman added that, “Administrators and coaches will start this month [October] so that they can experience your experience. anticipate your needs and adjust schedules accordingly in a proactive rather than a reactive manner.” Teachers were assured that efforts would be made to respect their time. Goldman mentioned taking items “off teachers’ plates” to respect teachers’ time. The auditorium filled with grumblings and some laughter. Later, Burkiett assured teachers that district leaders were serious about alleviating burdens on teachers’ time to accommodate the LETRS training.

Joseph Schwartzburt is the education and workforce development reporter for Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at jschwartzburt@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: sccpss holds Right to Read LETRS literacy kickoff event