4.17.2025 Doran Elementary HDT Visit with Congressman Jake Auchincloss

Not a problem. Thank you all very much.

Great pleasure for me to be here.

Superintendent Curley and her team, thank you very much. This is not the first visit we've organized at a Fall River school. We started a year ago uh and started in Fall River and that have been around the state since then offering opportunities for elected officials and and appointed officials and others to come and see uh really this practice, this model that we think is producing great results uh that we're

very hopeful the state will scale up uh in the next couple of years uh to move forward. So, we appreciate you being here, Congressman. Thank you very much.

We know your schedule's quite busy these days uh and uh you're taking the time to come here. I think it's important uh both for the school community uh and for business leaders uh who are really interested in seeing a return on investment in terms of proven strategies happening in our schools and that's what matters. It's not just about the talent pipeline from a business leader perspective. Uh it's also about equity

of opportunity for students and high quality educational experiences. And I'm pleased that that Nick Christ and Bank Coast Bank, they're members of our uh alliance. They wanted to see this firsthand. They're strong supporters uh of our work. I'm so glad that that they're joining us here today as well.

We had a state house briefing uh a few weeks ago, so a lot of members of the local delegation uh were there uh and will continue to interact with us uh during these visits, but we think it's really important for people to see firsthand uh what's going on. I will offer a little qualifier uh with regard to this visit. When we first established it, we thought we might be able to take

you into the classroom so that you could see the 15 minutes per day that was happening. And unfortunately, due due to some technical issues over the last week or two here in Fall River, that's not going to be possible. So what we're doing is we're having first graders come in and talk with you uh about it uh so that you can see the uh excitement uh that that they get uh from this program,

but also to have an opportunity to present with you uh some data uh and some firsthand um testimonial from uh some of our educators uh themselves. So um I won't give you the long MBA commercial, but we're 35 years old. We represent business leaders and organizations across the state. We currently have 42 affiliate organizations. Almost every chamber of commerce. Every industry sector

organization uh is is an affiliate of ours and dozens of corporate members like Bay Coast uh and others who support our work. Uh business leaders dedicated to that mission that is dyed in both equity of opportunity for students and a strong and diverse talent pipeline. And so you see there some of our uh some of our billions. We know that we've got a crisis uh in early literacy in

Massachusetts. Uh that for our continued uh ranking at the top of national rankings with regard to educational achievement, we know that often times maybe either dependent on your zip code or your particular challenge, uh it's not equal for everybody. And in particular, when we look at third grade reading schools, we certainly see a pandemic impact, but you can also see there was a plateauing even before the

pandemic with regard to the percentages of third graders reading at grade level.

That has been exacerbated not just only here in Massachusetts, but nationally.

And a lot of states have responded either through the use of federal ESSA dollars generously provided by Congress uh or their own state and local dollars invested in a strategy called high doses tubing. uh and this particular model of high dosage tutoring we think is both unique and effective. We're going to talk a little bit about it today, but we recognize the importance of ensuring

that third graders can read at grade level because all of the science tells us that if a a child does not learn to read by third grade, they're really challenged in terms of reading to learn beyond that. And so if we don't invest at this early level for these students, we are potentially consigning a generation of them to a lack of academic achievement that is not going to prepare

them for future success. And so it is a significant challenge that we need to address.

Um I I actually think this number is even less now. I I joke all the time every time I slow show this slide this number gets reduced because increasingly state after state after state is requiring something called the science of reading evidence-based instruction.

It is vitally important and yet in Massachusetts almost 50% of our school districts do not use the science of reading curriculum. It's not uh consigned to urban districts or whatever. Fall River is a district that has embraced uh the science of reading or evidence-based instruction for many many years now. Uh but you would think that when the science suggests, we all know sometimes skepticism that comes

these days in our country with regard to science when the science clearly tells you that something is working.

Phonics-based instruction, evidence-based instruction is working to move the needle for kids. And yet we still have schools and districts and in some classrooms teachers who for whatever reason have been doing it the same way for 30 years and find it difficult to change or they find challenged. Uh the fact is that we're not serving students well if we're not giving them the best level of high

quality instruction. And so there is legislation that has been filed in Massachusetts. Senator Salita Demenico in the h in the Senate and Senator Gansina in the House have filed legislation that MBA strongly supports that will require science of reading instruction in all of our schools. In addition though to the science of reading instruction, we need interventions that will help those

students who particularly enter first grade behind. And so where states have been very successful, Virginia is is one example, Louisiana is another, uh they have married the idea of science-based reading instruction for all of their students with direct tutoring intervention. And where that has happened, the results have been fairly amazing. And that's what we hope will happen here in Massachusetts as well,

that we'll have not only the curriculum, but uh the intervention that goes with it. These are some Fall River numbers that I just want to uh uh share with you uh quickly. Um you can see here in Fall River the number of students for whom intensive intervention was necessary at the start of the first grade. This model requires uh an assessment of students.

We have something in Massachusetts called Dibbles. Did I get that right?

Stop. Right. Your students national Oh, national. Thank you. Uh get this Dibbles assessment. So we can identify kids with meeting gaps as soon as they enter first grade. And if we start with that intervention and you can see in this case 66% of students uh look at the numbers more than half of those students with um the high dosage tutoring model move away from needing that intensive

intervention in um you can see the increase at or above benchmark for the number of students. uh as a businessled organization we have always been very much focused on looking at data to drive decision- making and this is very very impressive data I think you can also see and and fall river tracks pretty much the statewide average on this but students who are participating in the program have gained

an additional not just 5.4 months but an additional 5.4 to four months of learning and that's an acceleration that is very notable. Johns Hopkins University has done this uh analysis and research on what's happening here in Massachusetts and and let me tell you the reason that we have um some presence some foothold in Massachusetts on this in what about 13 districts and 46 schools. Did I get that close? That was

last year. Yeah, about 49 schools this year. Uh is is through the philanthropy of the 18 Foundation. The 1A Foundation has for the last couple of years now uh seated this uh proof of concept approach uh across these schools in high need schools, high needs districts where there's a concentration of students in need. Uh they have made this investment uh to the tune of about $6 million a

year of their own funding to pilot this.

And so that has produced these kinds of results that now we are asking state leaders to over the next four to five years uh seriously help uh with an intervention that would scale this up to 10,000 students about 53% of our first first graders next year uh at $25 million. It's about $2,500 per seat if I'm correct in terms of the intervention. Right. So I'm going to stop there and I'm going to turn I thank

Right. Thank you. And I'm gonna turn it over to Caleb, Taylor from the 1A Foundation, who's going to talk a little bit about the the model. And even though you won't get the chance to see it in the classroom, uh we do have video. Uh so you'll get a pretty good sense of what this looks like in real time.

Caleb, thanks. Sounds good.

Um I think I knew that students were coming in and I learned a long time ago, uh never to follow students when they steal the show. So, thank you, Ed, for putting me before um students. My name is Caleb Puriller. I'm a program manager for the 18 Foundation that's located in Boston. Um and over the last couple years, uh last school year and this year, the foundation, as Ed talked

about, has funded um kind of over 2,000 seats across the Commonwealth. So, in 13 districts, uh 46 schools last year, 49 schools this year. And I think what my my goal for the next 10 minutes is just to give you a sense actually of the ignite reading program. So to be clear, Ignite reading is a high dosage tutoring provider. They are the provider that the 18 foundation kind of after extensive

research selected to do this work in Massachusetts. And so the grants the foundation has been giving have been to districts who are then paying for this tutoring through the uh Ignite. So I just want to be clear about that piece.

But I'm going to talk to you a little bit about Ignite. Before I do that, go back one slide. I just I want to share why the foundation um be became interested in this work. Um you know the the most of the work that 18 does is in the STEM and applied learning space. Uh the foundation does not typically do work in early literacy. And I think there was a realization a couple years

ago that all of the other admirable programs that the foundation was funding um could be higher yield um if more students were reading on grade level.

That all those other programs could be more accessible and could yield stronger results if we had more students in the Commonwealth where they needed to be with regards to early literacy. And so after uh a bit of research which the 1A foundation does very very well um they identified that high dosage tutoring has been proven time and time again to effectively close gaps whether it's coming out of the pandemic or just

everyday student gaps. High dosage tutoring has a way of closing those gaps effectively. Um and the foundation decided to focus on first grade because we think there's a real opportunity because in first grade the gaps are not so wide that they can be closed most of the time over the course of one school year. So we can if a student coming into first grade if we can identify what

those gaps are and give them a targeted intervention there's a really really good chance that they will be on grade level at the end of first grade. it will be where they need to be starting in second grade and they will kind of uh achieve escape velocity in their academic trajectory in ways that would not be possible if they persist with those gaps. So um a little bit of like a

101 in uh science of reading as we go to the next slide. So uh I'm going to show you two kind of uh charts graphics that that I think help us understand what's going on here. So the first is from a reading researcher Scarbor Scarbor and um it's an attempt to break down all of these discrete skills that we need to master in order to become fluent readers. So the top of this rope, right,

the idea is that when these skills are woven together and we're doing this all the time without thinking about it, we become skilled fluent readers. The top of this rope, that's where um you know that that's kind of making meaning of text. That's after you know how to read a little bit. That's the stuff that's the world that kind of we're in every day when we're grappling with text and

practice a lot, you can master them. And so, one other um, if you go to the next slide, one other thing I wanted to show you is another reading researcher, Nancy Young. This is Nancy Young's ladder of reading. And um Nancy Young shows us that the brain learns to read in lots of different ways, but the good news is everyone can get there. Every single kid can get there. Um the bad news, sort of

bad news, is that her research shows us that 50 to 60% of students are going to require explicit instruction to break the code, to figure out how to read. And not only do they need direct instruction in this, but they need a lot of practice, a lot of reps, a lot of at bats if they're going to get to be fluent readers. So, this really helps us in that it kind of shows us, hey, all

kids can read and it's a little bit sobering. It's a wakeup call that if we don't provide 50 to 60% of kids with explicit instruction and a lot of practice, they're not going to get there. And interestingly, her stats kind of track with the stats that Ed was showing because if you look at 40% proficiency across the Commonwealth, that's basically the percentage of students who are going to learn to read

on their own or with a little bit of help. But we know 50 to 60% of kids need a lot more than that. And that's where high dosage tutoring comes in. So if we go to this next slide, I want to share four kind of components of the ignite program, how they do what they do, and all of these track to kind of characteristics of high dosage tutoring that have proven to be effective. So the

first is that um students do daily one-on-one virtual tutoring with the same tutor every single day. So every single day at the same time they sit down in front of a Chromebook or maybe a laptop or a um or an iPad and they log in using a simple signin system and on the other end of that screen is a human being and it's a tutor and it's the same tutor every single day and they do 15

minutes of targeted work with that individual. The second is that Ignite Reading uses a researchbased curriculum to do the work that the tutors are engaged in. that's aligned with the highquality instructional materials that Fall River has adopted. So, they're not using a set of materials that kind of work against what the first grade teachers are doing every day. They're using practices that align with what's

going on in the classroom.

Um, one of the things we need to do is change our mental model about tutoring.

I think oftentimes when we think about tutoring, we think about incredibly well-meaning volunteers who show up to do a little bit of help after school to help with some homework and then they kind of go home and everyone feels really, really good about it. Um, research has shown that doesn't really work. Those aren't the tutors we're talking about. These are highly trained tutors. They do 60 to 70 hours of

professional development. They're using a prescriptive curriculum. They are getting coaching. they're getting feedback. So, these are kind of professional tutors. Uh, and the last thing I want to talk about is Ignite employs a literacy specialist who meets with the team at every school once a month to review student data to think about what's working and not working to help and serve as a resource and to

really collaborate with educators on the ground who are doing incredible incredible work. So, because we can't get into a classroom, we're going to do something that is a very poor substitute for actually seeing this in action. U we're going to watch a very, very short video. And the advantage of watching the video is that it actually gets you a look into what this tutoring looks like

from both sides. So, if we went into a classroom this morning, you'd be blown away. These kids are not only adorable, but they're engaged and they're working their butts off. But you'd only see it from one side. You'd be looking over a student's shoulder. They'd be wearing headphones. You wouldn't really be kind of figuring out what they're hearing or what they're saying. There'd be a lot of

kids doing tutoring. We're actually going to see a video that Ignite produces that just shows you the interaction of a teacher, sorry, a tutor and a student, and you'll get a a flavor for what happens in the 15 minutes. And I uh used to be a teacher and a high school principal. And so the educator in me um is going to kind of um socialize a question that I'm going to ask you after

we watch the video because I don't want you to feel like I surprised you with a quiz at the end. Um I'm going to ask you kind of what what you see what what resonates or what surprises you or um what your reactions are to seeing this tutoring and then I'm going to share a couple observations that I always have whenever I view this work. So can we watch this?

How engaged the student is? Yeah, I I it's on my list. If this were I don't know, whatever the game show is where there's some unknowns up on the board, we'd be doing a ding ding ding. I totally agree. Incredibly engaged, highly engaged. What are other things that you all observe or see?

Yeah. And I think that factors into the engagement piece. There's personality.

There's some a little bit of like tech at work with the fireworks that make everyone smile. Absolutely. What else?

Yeah, I appreciate how it's uh you know, especially today's dark world professionally, there's a lot of Zoom meetings and learning children at an early level, how to be engaged virtually.

So, that's and and you know, impossible to hide, right? It's one-on-one. Um, interestingly, uh, in you you you'll hear from teachers, but even when you're doing one on two or one on three or one on four group in a class, um, there are opportunities to hide. First grade teacher here. Hey, how are you? Meline, are these yours? Uh, those who are mine.

They are absolutely. They are terrific.

They're awesome.

Diane Danu who's here from the Doran.

Yep.

VA Alicia Fernandez, literacy coach from the forward public schools, Stephanie Kennedy, uh, who's director of VA. Um, and I'd like to ask each of them maybe to just give your perspective as a follow-up to what we heard from the students and maybe even within the context of some of the questions that the congressman and others have asked, just to offer your thoughts and impressions before we before we start to

close up the program.

just a little bit every day. Sure. I um so this is our second year doing Ignite and I absolutely love it. Um, our first graders come in at all different reading levels and um, the best part about Ignite is that it can reach all of our lower students and I have we have the set curriculum that we follow and we move through at a pretty quick pace and sometimes these little scholars who

start out lower get left behind and I do not have the time. We try our best but to make sure that we're gearing our instruction to what they need specifically, but these Ignite tutors in this Ignite time gives them the opportunity to get exactly what they need. And I can also kind of speak to it as a parent. My daughter was in first grade last year. She loved it. And I

think that it really helped her solidify those site words that if they don't get it that week that we're looking at it over and over again, then they see it when they see it. But when they're seeing it every day during that Ignite time, it helps them to realize what or practice that word. It gives them that more um the practice and the automaticity that they need to be able to be successful readers. And they also

just they enjoy it. And then it also gives me a little bit more time to work with those higher students in a smaller group setting so that I can continue to raise them up um and help them with the skills that they need and um and work with them on the skill like specifically on the skills that they need instead of continuously um trying to help those lower students.

So at the outset you had some bar graphs up there and it showed 31%.

Mhm. Right there. Right there. What happens with that 31%? Do they go through the program again?

What how do how do we get them to the green? What occurs?

We have a multitude of um approach here where students uh do have an intervention. So, Ignite is just like this wonderful addition to our system that we already have in place in Doran.

And so, um, we have students who are in an intervention where they get 30 minutes in a small group of explicit instruction and phonics. Um, and then as well as they have the tier one which is core um with supports to access core and now we have Ignite. So, it's just it's just an it fits in perfectly. how it's an additional you take 15 minutes and to be honest with you when it was um when

we talked about accepting it like last year I thought 15 minutes it takes them that long to get up stairs for lunch but you know what the tutors are well prepared they their instruction is seamless they're explicit it's it's amazing right we were blown away when you saw some of the lessons so um so yeah they they get lots of support and just Ignite is a gift it really is how many first graders

full of 900. So I say just under a,000. So we have 400 seats right now.

300 of them are funded through the 18 foundation and we were lucky enough to have our school committee funded additional seats for um schools that did not have the 18 support um in the first round of the night.

How about some other perspectives? Um what are you how tangibly are you seeing the the results um both in terms of student confidence but also in terms of data which I'm sure you unpack on a regular basis.

I I mean I can talk about the data. Um we we the data piece of it um when you have a struggling reader they have to make ambitious growth in order to close gaps. first grade is the perfect grade to have at night because it is the vital grade. That's where they learn all syllable types. Um, and that is their foundation. If it's weak going into the the next grade in and and up, then they

may always struggle. So, first grade is great. Um, we progress monitor our interventions um every 6 to 8 weeks to see if they've made typical growth, less than typical or ambitious. All of our students that are on Ignite are making ambitious growth. So, we need to continue this to close that gap. Um, we have only a few that are just slowly growing. Um, and we'll put we might put an additional dose in there because

that's what it is. They get taught the skill. They're accurate. Now, they need to practice and apply it consistently until it becomes automatic. That's the thing. So, kids can, you know, decode a word, but if they're not automatic about it, they're robotic when they're reading. Therefore, they can't understand text, right? And so, we know that. And so we try to put the things in

place so that they're successful as they move into second grade. Yeah, they still teach finest, but it's at a f faster pace. I think it's important to know too that um with our partnership with Ignite. Um they do have daily meetings and our teachers attend those. And so Melanie can probably speak to um what she learns when she's at those data meetings, but they they do happen on a similar cycle to what Diane just

described um that you know 6 to 8 week cycle. So Melanie, do you want to speak to that a little? It's actually it's been amazing because we're seeing the growth. I think at our last meeting we talked about how many students started in a kindergarten level on Ignite at the beginning of the year and I can't remember the number but I want to say there were like 11 students at in the

beginning of the year whose baseline data started them in a kindergarten ignite level. We have one student left in that kindergarten level and actually that student came from he had never been to school before. So for him to even be close to a first grade level is pretty amazing. Um so it's awesome to see that growth. And then they also tell us, okay, well this is this person's a

concern. So let's let's look at at why that student might be a concern. Maybe it's an attention thing. Maybe they need to be in a different spot within the classroom or it's something that we can work on together between the Ignite tutors, the people that are in charge. um we have a person whom we speak to or um or with us in the classroom. Um so it's a great partnership that um that I feel like we

have. We actually extended our data meetings. We only have 30 minutes. We ask for an hour. I mean they come so prepared. It's like they're part of our school. We actually truly get a lot of information from them. And then we have Darren who is like the go-to person. Any question I have, he's emailing me at all hours. I mean, just the the whole structure of um the Ignite makes it very

easy um to implement and it's actually amazing to see the kids getting on like my watch goes off every day at 10:25 and they know, oh, it's night time and they get their Chromebooks and they get their headphones and it's it's actually a pretty fun thing to see because they just know what to do. And by 10:30, everyone is logged in. they are ready to go and at 10:45 they put their

Chromebooks away, their headphones away and they go into um we get ready for lunch. But it's just it's it's a nice progression of things and um just wanted to um bounce off of two things that Melanie said. So, she was speaking about students that started in the beginning of year kindergarten skills um in the beginning of the year and we have had 80% of our students that started in those um beginning of year

kindergarten skills now progress into the first grade skills. So, although they may still be um lagging from their peers, they've accelerated that full um into that into that current grade level. And so there's still work to be done which we do through um our multi-tered system of support as well as their continued work with Ignite. Um, and I think just to mention that in the beginning of this

when teachers were first told about, you know, this this partnership there there was some anxiety. They were afraid like my my babies can't do this. You know, there was a lot of that talk, but like I would say within a week, two weeks, teachers were like totally sold on it because um they saw that the kids can actually do this. And when you go into the classroom, Tracy can speak to this

um as well, the the kids are like just so engaged. The kids that are around them that are not part of Ignite, they don't even realize what's happening.

Like they just continue doing what they're doing. And there have been some kids that like, I want that, too. And we're like, you don't have that right now. And they're sad when they graduate.

Like, no, this is good. We've had so many more kids graduate this year. I actually had my data meeting with um the district data meeting um on Tuesday and I asked them to get us the stats around how many people how many students had graduated at this time last year to this time this year because it just seems like there's so many more students graduating from the program. Um which would mean that they've acquire the

skills that they need in order to go into second grade. Um as a one of the things we talking about the graduation is really important because we count these as seats as opposed to students and that's really important so that as a student graduates from the program uh it's not tied necessarily the first grade in fact there are some uh Ignite funding funding for Ignite from the state and through ESS

dollars have have been used or last couple years at the second and third grade level. the research suggests it's more effective at the first grade level, but it's not solely a first grade uh strategy. Uh and that a lot of those students in that 31 category have still made some pretty good progress uh over time. So, um I want to give the congressman and others an opportunity to ask any questions of our educators

before we start to wrap up because I know time is going to be limited, but let me open it up for questions. Yeah.

Uh how are the parents involved? Do they get updates on the status? they have practice words. How do you do that? Um, so they're informed at the beginning of the year when um when they are signed up for it and then we send at home the progress reports that Ignite provides with provides us when we get them and um and then let them know at parent teacher conferences and just have discussions

about what what they're doing with Ignite. Um, we recently received a shipment of workbooks from Ignite. Um, because we've had a lot of conversation with the the company around the lack of fluency and that students need to be more automatic before they graduate out of a what they call a protocol. Um, and so they created these workbooks that allow students to work on something that

they've already mastered so that they start to become more automatic at it.

And those workbooks are used in a variety of ways. They can be used in class um or they can be sent home to families to work with their students.

I'd love to hear your your thoughts on math too teachers.

Oh, I think I I love math. I think that math it would be awesome. Um, I think that we we also have the uh multi-ter system with our math where we they have their intervention groups to go over like university and um and like that sort of stuff. But um I think that they struggle more with the I think that math comes a little bit easier because it's more concrete. So, um I think that

I mean it would be wonderful to have different things put in place as far as as helping the students who are struggling with with math or anybody um for that for that subject. But um I just feel like with reading there's just so many different um different things to be taught that it just gets more and more confusing for the kids. Whereas with math it's just more concrete. Um, but I would be open

for to doing that opportunities for I I want to thank you very much for this. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry.

Question. Does RI have any um policies or things in place that try reaching potential students before they come into school? Do do you have things where they identify like, "Hey, there's a 2-year-old or a three-year-old." And we can reach out to those families and say, "Hey, listen. We want them here. We suggest you can look into this. We suggest you look into that." I mean, I love all of this stuff. Don't get me

wrong. My kids were reading Harry Potter. I was a stay-at-home dad. I was able to teach them how to read all the phonics and stuff like that. And I understand that there's not a lot of parents that do that. There's also not a lot of them of the parents that know that they can or they have the skills or there might be things out there that are free that they can utilize to get

themsel uh their children prepared. So, I don't know if that's part of the plan.

Another thing I was thinking of just spitballing is if the school system, you know, has a thing every year where people with young kids who want to know books or how to how to learn, you can have a night where your parents can come in and say, "Hey, listen. here's some resources for you to start getting your child ready to do things. And I guess my final thing too is is I love this. I

just as a state legislator, you see the added expense of it and you want to you want to be a good steward of everyone's money. So where it's needed, we spend it. But also I think one of the things we forget is we like to throw money at things. But we can also in school when they're probably high school age is start telling kids like listen when you get in the real world these are what you

need to do. you want to raise good kids if you're going to have children and you want to do this and reading is important and it's hard emphasizing that there so they know cuz I think inherently we know that but I don't think we actually say that a lot of times cuz we don't say things no one ever does it um you know I I looked on my phone we were doing this

and because first grade kind of made me I go isn't that a little late because most of the learning or 90% is between their birth and five first grade starts at six you know So, I think they can still learn the stuff, but if we can get that to a little bit earlier, we might be able to help and make that better and still have this program, but maybe not

blow it up to this big thing that it could potentially be, right? Like, we want to be a like I as a represent have to be a good steward of everyone's tax dollar. So, you have to say like, hey, listen, we can use this here, but can we be a little more creative? So, I don't know if those things are in place, talked about, or maybe looked at, and we

can be innovative in that way, too. So, anything to help. Um, and the other the one other thing too is like I said, my daughter 3 years old is at a second grade level in preschool and they made her sit there. So, you balance those things too, right? Like if you had a two bar head, so I also understand that. So, you know, just I love it. Uh, I just don't know if there's other things we

can do to also help to maybe limit the amount we do. I don't It sounds like we have a Republican in favor of Head Start.

administration that's got I am in favor I am in favor of all sorts and my daughter as I was telling Katarina my daughter starts med school this summer and she's skipping her uh senior year of college to do that thank you so much thank you very much really do appreciate it my wife's an educator too my wife's an educator I love education I think like I everyone can agree that education is what helps

people potentially be successful right It's the foundation for that's what we want for societ. Congressman, thank you very much. Thank you. Um, let me let me uh just offer a couple of just a little feedback on on what the representative just said. First of all, in terms of the investment, as as business leaders, we're always concerned about the return on invest, right? And we want the most

efficient effective use of of tax dollars. This is an intervention at $2,500 per student that has the ability to protect, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars that we might invest in each student going forward.

Massachusetts right now is spending anywhere between 15 to $20,000 per student per year, right? So, think about that over the course of 12 years, right?

If we're spending that and and the student is just kind of gliding through without being able to achieve academically because they didn't learn to read at the first grade level, that's kind of a you think about how we kind of toss that $150,000 away, right? But by spending $2,500 at the right moment with the right strategy at the right time, we protect and preserve the rest of that

investment. So, in my by by our way of thinking, this is one of the reasons why as business leaders, we're big proponents of this is because you're protecting and preserving that longerterm investment, which we think makes a ton of sense. I I I'll let folks talk specifically about Fall River. I happen to know a little bit about Fall River myself. Um I have a I have a middle school student who when he was

three years old did not speak and now he doesn't shut up. Right. Um, but you know, we had access to programs like people incorporated program and the like to to have him in and get the supports he needed and stuff like that. And they open up the spigots and you know, God bless us all now, right? But, um, the other thing that the legislature, I think, and the governor uh are doing

very well is investing in universal highquality prek in the gateway cities, which really is going to give us opportunities to reach deeper in and earlier. So, I don't I don't disagree with you. I think that I think we all agree that the earlier the intervention can be uh the better. Uh but from from a practical perspective, this is a first grade strategy.

Pretty well. Yes. I I mean the one thing I would say in terms of a few of the things that you mentioned in terms of um you know practices in place that don't wait for a first grade reading intervention. We do have prek in the district um and a lot of that outreach is done. you know, a lot of the students come in through early intervention and, you know, special ed referrals and then

we have um, you know, a whole host of students who are typical peers in those classrooms. Fall River is a district that, you know, funds prek I I would say at a loss. It's an investment, right? We spend more than is reimbured through the state for that very reason because if we're not doing that, then what? Then what is the cost to students and financially as the years go on? Um once

and then there are also groups um play and learn some of the things that you referenced in terms of bringing families together. There are groups like that in the community as well. Um once students are here and they're in our schools across the district u math and literacy nights do take place um you know across the school where we do bring parents in.

It's a lot of make and take a lot of educating parents about what they can be doing at home to continue the work that's being done after school day. And then you know on a small scale I'm not going to pretend it's like this uh with this you know grand thing that we do but you know during um during the munch march in particular you know literacy month we do bring students in um you

know older students you know in a school like this where it's K to8 older students are you know partnering classrooms and readers classrooms reading buddies we bring students in from the high schools into our elementary schools to do reading in classrooms and so you know small ways maybe not the kind of concerted effort that you're applying on in terms of making that connection for our older

kids as they move on and they're going to be raising families someday, but the seeds are all there. And I think that we you're not wrong in that we can do a lot more to support the system and we have students in first grade who are behind in their reading and if we don't do something to close them down, it will cost us.

I would I would also add that our department has done some work with um especially when you're thinking about those students that are up to age five working on that top part of Scarboro's rope that um that Cayla had spoken about earlier that language comprehension component. Um we put little libraries in little free libraries in front of all of our schools um from our elementary all

the way to our high school where the community is invited to go take books out for their kids or themselves if they choose to. Um, additionally, we've built a website where um, it's all about language comprehension. There's like a little bit of information for any parent um, in our city or not in our city and we have read alouds that are attached to that and some questions that parents can

use to talk to their kids um, about what they're learning about um, the text that they're listening to. And so we've had like little inroads here and there um, and is just encouraging people to take advantage of those things. Great.

Because that's one of that's one of the things that's funny as a as a politician, right? Like a you understand a lot of political things and you expect other people to and I think it's the same thing as my wife being a teacher and she talks like I'm like you expect people to understand because that's what you do. So sometimes we have to you know bridge those gaps and um you know find

creative ways. So like I said I love this. I love nothing more to fund this or whatever but if it if it grows exponentially it's going to be a huge cost. A thousand kids is uh 2.25 25 million, right? Yeah.

No, no, go ahead. I'm sorry. I was gonna some of that, but yeah, but but again, like I said, I I think one of the things that we do is I was at another school and these kids were talking about homelessness and these eighth graders and how they combat it or drugs and stuff like that and I look at them, I go, you know, you're in the place right now that if you apply yourself, you can

avoid some of these things and learn from this stuff, right? And we all I'm sure we all sit there like, they should teach kids finance. they should teach kids this, right? Like we and again this isn't a knock on anybody, right? Like this is something at the state house.

Give me feedback. You know, reach out to my office. But I think somewhere at the high school level, we have to teach kids like, hey, listen, you got a lot of good resources. You are where you are. You have to give that to your kids and stop early, right? I think that's another piece that we we just assume people are going to do. But as we we see that doesn't happen. Like I'm I'm a kid. I'm

sitting there. changing my kids diapers, singing the ABCs, 1, two, three, counting with them at that young age, right? They get the things they're count to 100, doing math, addition, all this stuff. And other kids are just sitting there because they didn't have that cuz, you know, maybe the kids were engaged, didn't go out or didn't have the resources. So, we can at least start maybe in the school system like, hey,

listen, education is important to you, but it's also important to your future family, to your help your family out, and just instill that. I think you I think I think you tried doing that but I don't know if it's ever communicated that way or you know that might be a high school level we have to do you know again I want to fund it but I don't want it to be like this thing that goes on

forever so I so so the so the as a follow up to to that let me close on on on this the Oh okay sure no uh the the ask before the legislature and actually uh we're very pleased that the house just recently took action in the supplemental budget fair share of reserves to uh allocate $25 million for this for next year. We're hoping hoping that the Senate will follow suit sometime in the

next couple of weeks. Um the ask here is is not to have this line item be there in perpetuity. Okay. All right. But at least for a four or five year period as other states have done where they kind of really seed the scaling up and over that four or five years that gives us an opportunity to work with school districts to allow them to kind of shift resources. is I want to give forward a

credit because certainly 18 helped fund this. Forward is one of the few districts who said well you know we're going to find a way to put some of our own money into this as well and so they really deserve I think some some credit as a model for that. So longer term, we got to figure out how to integrate this in more into the budget. But this is how good ideas start, right? Someone's got

to you need some seed capital and we're asking the state for, you know, 100 125 million over 5 years from fair share revenue, which has to be dedicated to education. Okay. Well, I mean, you can agree or disagree whether or not the balance budget should have passed, but it did pass. No, no, no. So, I I I don't know if people understand is um the fair share amendment, we did get extra money,

but that is not going to always happen that way. that that's part of my concern with a lot of these things. We start getting involved in something and then the next year we don't get it. So again, I guess that's one of my concerns. So I 100% agree with you. But we had a $1.3 billion excess. We might not get that next year.

If we don't get that, then these programs go away. So while we can take advantage, take advantage. And I guess that's kind of why I'm couching this and saying, listen, this is great, but also let's think about maybe ways we can help to achieve a similar goal, but in a different way. That's that's one of the things. Well, that's why we're here to hand you the problem that suggests this

investment should happen. So, let's figure out the best way to integrate it going forward. So, um I So, I think in that spirit, we appreciate you being here. We appreciate people's opportunity to engage something. I was just going to I I just wanted to respond to something that you had said um around make this isn't going to last forever and we have to be thoughtful of that. think that in

Fall River we spent a lot of time and energy and money um investing in our teachers and so we were ahead of the game when it came came to science of reading training. Um we've trained hundreds of our teachers in the science of reading and the alliance pedigogy.

We've made some real um strategic moves around what's happening during our tiered interventions. Um and so we are working so that it doesn't continue to happen. Um, and we've seen growth in our educators as a result of all the work that's gone into them.

Unfortunately, we lose educators and so we we keep feel like we keep starting over again. Thank God we have people like Melanie and Alicia who have been here for a while and we'll stay because they love our Fall River kids. Um, but it does feel like it's an endless cycle of giving PD, giving PD, giving PD. Um, and then other districts sometimes benefit from our work. But that's the

way it is. They're all good. And what's not to love about these fall attention?

Thank you all very much. Really appreciate you being here. I thank uh Superintendent Curley and her team.

Kayla from 188 has really done an awesome job uh getting this uh spotlighted uh and now I think that you know they've done their role as philanthropists and now we're trying to as policy makers kind of need to take that up and collaboratively support efforts that work for our kids.

Thank you all very much to our educators as well. Thank you.

Grab a weapon.