Spring ISD approves long-term literacy plan

Superintendent Rodney Watson said the literacy development plan will be implemented over three years so teachers are not learning the new tactics and enacting them at the same time. It will also allow principals to coach the teachers.

Watson, who helped enact a Neuhaus literacy plan while working at Houston ISD, said the deliberate approach will provide long-term benefits for students and short-term results for teachers who will be more informed when the plan is introduced to students.

“It’s certainly ambitious, but it’s definitely going to ensure that we have principals [who] are able to lead literacy at their buildings,” Watson said.

Neuhaus will begin training administrators and literacy coaches at elementary schools during the 2015-16 school year, district officials said. Secondary administrators will begin training by the end of the year.

Principals and literacy coaches will be trained on data-driven literacy instruction in the first year of the plan. Administrators will get more advanced training during the second year of the plan, and students will be introduced to the program in its third year. 

The district first outlined a need for a long-term literacy program in its five-year improvement plan, Every Child 2020, which was announced in May and aims to solve the literacy crisis as well as other issues.