Boothbay Region Elementary School Principal Shawna Kurr told Community School District committee members Feb. 10, teachers are working at improving literacy levels from kindergarten through eighth grade. Kurr said North West Evaluation Association (NWEA) testing and the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA2) have shown improvement for cohorts year to year, but grades one and four are struggling most of all.

“It’s very concerning,” said Kurr. “We know those kindergarteners missed out on instruction … so, we knew they were going to come in behind certainly due to the pandemic. They're struggling to close that gap.”

NWEA results for the fall broke third through eighth grade results into low, average and high percentiles – under 21%, 21% to 80%, and over 80% respectively. Kurr said just because a great deal of students fall into the average column does not mean there are not improvements to make with them and other students.

DRA2’s showed from 2020 to January 2021, first grade went from 40% to 35% at or above grade level; second grade, 56% to 63%; third grade, 42% to 70%; and fourth grade, 33% to 30%. Kurr said the intervention needed for each grade will be different as the gap between previous and latest assessments varies, but fourth graders were in dire need of phonics, she said.

Fourth grade teacher Jennifer Lassen reached out to colleagues for guidance and everyone was all over it, said Kurr. “… Now Jen is learning a totally new phonics program to help meet the needs of our kids. Again, middle of a pandemic, things are really wonky, and we have a teacher taking on an entirely new way of teaching, a program she's never used before. That's just an example of what comes out of the data conversations and the risk that our staff is taking to meet the needs of students.”

First grade teacher Sarah Wade suggested an intervention for struggling first graders on Wednesdays starting after February break. Students will be coming in for a half day to focus on boosting literacy skills. Kurr said the half days will run Feb. 24 to March 31.

Said Kurr, “The important thing I really want you to take away from this is that the data tools we use are really meaningful to us … The support teachers are getting in the instruction they're doing is helping close the gap … We are having ongoing conversations about how to use this data, how to use it better and how to have it inform what we do at a school level down to the molecular level, to the students.”

Alternative Organizational Structure (AOS) 98 Superintendent Keith Laser announced Adult Education Director Pam Moody will be retiring. The retirement appeared on the Feb. 10 agenda along with an introduction to Kayla Sikora of Regional School Unit (RSU) 40 who may take over for Moody.

Moody went over the program’s achievements since 2018: getting state subsidies back, becoming a High School Equivalency Test (HiSET) testing site and growth of a self-sustaining workforce and career development program. Moody said the CSD’s adult ed program is doing only academic work, but Sikora is capable of overseeing a more robust program which can work within and around the constraints of the pandemic.

“I have complete confidence in Kayla's ability as the director in RSU 40 to continue the work … She's got that youth with her, she just pushes forward with it and she's so good running a lot of distance learning opportunities in her district and I know she can do that in our district, too.”

When Sikora went into the RSU 40 program, it was more of an enrichment program and less academic, she said. Now, it has programs on credit recovery, diploma acquisition, HiSET testing and college transitions. Sikora has a master's degree in Adult and Higher Education and a certificate in Advanced Study in Adult Learning from University of Southern Maine. She is also a professional certified adult ed director.

“This is my chosen career, I love working with adults, I love working with young people who might be struggling and don't really have that much direction in life … I really do love being a director and we are offering a lot of distance education programming through RSU 40 adult ed and I would love to offer more programming to your community as well. I think it would be a great fit.”

Boothbay Region High School Principal Tricia Campbell thanked students, parents, CSD staff and many community members who, in the summer, helped prepare the schools for outbreak scenarios. Campbell said the preparation made a smooth transition following contact tracing protocols when the school identified its first positive case last month. “We were able to quickly jump into action and smoothly transition our students to 100% distance learning. We followed our protocols to allow 24-48 hours so we could do contact tracing … Our nurses were able to in less than 24 hours do the work of identifying the close contacts, reaching out and making those communications, working with the CDC so that close contacts were being supported and understood the protocol for them to be quarantined. Our teachers went right into action, our students were online and they knew the expectations. I was just incredibly impressed.”

BRES teachers Barbara Crocker and Charlinda Carlson have been nominated for the Lincoln County Teacher of the Year award, Kurr announced. The last CSD teacher to earn the award was seventh and eighth grade teacher Cordelia “Cory” Chase in 2014. Said Kurr, “Now it's their responsibility if they want to continue on the nomination … (Cory) reports that it was a lot of work to follow through, so I'm hoping that those two teachers will follow through. Hopefully we'll have a Lincoln County Teacher of the Year here in the CSD.”