Episode Transcript

Announcer: This podcast is produced by Benchmark Education.

Kevin Carlson: Over 12 years ago, a school district found some gaps in its literacy instruction and decided to fix them. This involved audits of resources, a commitment to evidence-based practices and the Science of Reading, a master plan, and, gradually, positive outcomes in student achievement.

The district is Waterbury, Connecticut, and the results they've seen have been transformative.

I'm Kevin Carlson, and this is Teachers Talk Shop.

Benchmark Education's Dr. Jennifer Nigh sat down with Susan Meaney and Doctor Dena Mortensen recently to discuss the literacy instruction in Waterbury, Connecticut. Their pursuit of improvement and collaboration is inspirational, and it has also been relentless.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Joining me today is Dena Mortensen and Susan Meaney from Waterbury, Connecticut, a district that has transformed its literacy instruction through a commitment to evidence-based practices. Welcome, Dena and Susan.

Dr. Dena Mortensen: Hello. Thank you.

Susan Meaney: Thank you for having us.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: We're so excited that you're here. So why don't we start? Can you each tell us a little bit about yourselves?

Dr. Dena Mortensen: Sure. I'm Dena Mortensen. I am an assistant professor of literacy in the Department of Literacy, Elementary, and Early Childhood Education at Central Connecticut State University. And I am the proud previous Supervisor of Elementary Reading and Language Arts for Waterbury Public Schools.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: I can definitely tell you are proud. I hear that in your voice, so that's wonderful. Susan, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Susan Meaney: I've been in the Waterbury School District for 31 years now. I'm currently a literacy facilitator at Kingsbury Elementary School in Waterbury. I've been in this position for the last 10 years. Prior to that, I was a reading teacher, also at the school, and a couple other schools in Waterbury. And then before that, I was a classroom teacher in grades 1 and 2.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Wonderful. Literacy facilitator—tell me a little bit more about what that role is.

Susan Meaney: There's one in each building, and we have 23 elementary schools now in Waterbury. So there's one in each of our buildings. We work with our teachers, providing coaching support. We also do professional development. We work closely with our administrators and our leadership team within our district and within our buildings. And we support the teachers in any way we can with their literacy instructional needs.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Okay. Very important role, for sure. Well, today we're going to talk about the journey that Waterbury took towards their success in the Science of Reading. And we're going to explore some of the challenges, the turning points, and the strategies that really made a lasting impact and turned this into a really incredible success story.

So let's start there. Every journey has a starting point. So let's go back to when your journey started. What did literacy look like, and what made you realize a change was needed? Dena, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Dr. Dena Mortensen: Absolutely. I'm going to take us back probably to 2013-14. Our state had started some initiatives working on literacy and particularly assessment practices in particular, and we were working in collaboration with UConn and Hill for Literacy and Literacy House, some great, supportive organizations. And we had determined in Waterbury that there were some gaps in our student performance, so we weren't achieving the way we wanted to achieve. And so we were taking a deep look at what we were measuring, the outcomes we were getting, and the materials we were using to get that job done. And in looking at those materials and in learning about the Science of Reading with our partners, we saw that there was some misalignment. There were certainly gaps in what we were doing and the materials we were using to get that job done.

So I think it started with an awareness of here's where we are, here's where we need to go, and what are we missing, as far as that bridge to get there.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Something that you just mentioned that stood out to me is the date, 2013. So we're talking a little while ago. This wasn't just in the last couple years, especially as the Science of Reading conversation has elevated a bit more in the field. So this work that you all, in this journey that you started on, goes back quite a while and it was focused at that time on, like you said, “Where are our gaps? How are we going to fix them, related to evidence-based practices in the Science of Reading?” So you engaged on that work quite a while ago.

Dr. Dena Mortensen: We did, and I would even say it was prior to 2013. That's when I started in the role. And some of that work had already been started in particular schools a few years before that, in collaboration with the State Department. So it has, it's been a very long time. It's a long road. It's a journey. What do they say? “It's more of a marathon and not just a sprint.”

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Not a sprint. Absolutely. Susan, tell me a little bit about what you were doing during that time.

Susan Meaney: At the time, I was a reading teacher at Kingsbury, and funny that Dena was actually my vice principal here before she became our ELA supervisor, so I had a lot of experience. We tried some things out here at Kingsbury, even. And one thing, like Dena was mentioning, is that we found that our teachers were not—they didn't have the materials they needed, and we wanted to make sure that they were using materials,  research-based materials that were aligned with the Science of Reading and using the right methods in order to teach kids, our students, to read. So we started to look at some of those materials, we took inventory. We also looked at our assessments, and the assessments we were using, we really dove down into look, “What is the purpose of our assessments?” We were giving a lot of assessments, and what were we doing with all of that data? So we had to really look at that and decide what was going to give us the biggest bang for our buck. What assessments did we need in place? And so we did that.

And then we also looked, like I said, at the materials. Our teachers, we noticed, were working hard, but, you know, they weren't using the right materials. So we wanted to make sure that they were working smarter, not just harder.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah, that's a great point. And I think, again, we're talking about quite a few years ago too. And I think, I don't want to generalize, but I think at that time, a lot of schools and districts, teachers were kind of piecemealing and they were pooling, or a lot of times they were making their own resources to implement, based off of what they could create, what they could find, etc.. Is that what you found when you realized that they weren't using the best materials, the best curriculum, best programs to move kids forward?

Susan Meaney: We all want to help our students. And when we see, especially when we see students struggling, we want to do whatever it is we can. So you did see a lot of reaching and pulling and doing what we thought was maybe the right thing, and looking for a different result and not always getting it.

Dr. Dena Mortensen: And I'll add to that, Jennifer. We had a survey that had gone out to teachers about curriculum at the time. And one thing that came through loud and clear in the surveys were that teachers were calling themselves hunters and gatherers, and we didn't want them spending the little time that a teacher has during the day hunting and gathering. It's just not appropriate. We wanted to make sure that they were equipped with the materials that they needed to get the job done, and to focus their time on planning and supporting kids, as opposed to just looking for materials to do their job.

Kevin Carlson: After the break: The audit. Stay with us.

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Dr. Jennifer Nigh: We talked about materials. You mentioned assessment being a really important piece there. So where did you go next? You had this realization that, “We're not necessarily where we want to be. Here are some of the reasons that might be contributing to that.” So what did you take? What was your next step in that journey? What did you do as a team to take that next step?

Dr. Dena Mortensen: We started with an audit and the literacy department—particularly all the literacy facilitators—we met and we started to determine, “What is it that we have in the schools?” Over decades, you accumulate a lot of materials and some of them become outdated, or some of them, maybe, were not necessarily aligned to research. So we wanted to start with, “Well, what are the materials that are even in our schools?” We also audited, to Sue's point earlier, “Which assessments are we giving?” And this took some time. I mean, we had large Excel spreadsheets, we have 23 elementary buildings and a facilitator to serve each one. At the time we had half as many facilitators. We didn't have a one-to-one match per school until I think 2015-16. And so there weren't as many people, but doing a ton of work to identify, “Well, what's in the building?”

And then we had to go through that list and determine what is still applicable today that our teachers can use, and what do we want to share with kids, communities, put into our libraries, because we're not going to use it as a primary instructional resource at this time. And we had to do the same thing with the assessments. Like, these assessments are great and you can use them for formative assessment—a teacher has that professional judgment to use what they need when they need it. But what's going to be the district assessments that we're all going to agree to use, that's going to really drive our instructional focus areas for students, which ultimately drives our instruction specifically?

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: And that takes a big commitment, right? Dena, you mentioned this didn't happen overnight. This took a lot of time. How did the teachers respond to that? Were they part of this process? How did that transpire as you were looking at the resources they were using and making decisions as to whether or not you want to continue to use some, maybe use them in a different way, or maybe not use them at all anymore?

Dr. Dena Mortensen: I think the timing was really ripe. And I say that because at the time, we had more of a paper-based curriculum, and that's when the teachers were calling themselves hunters and gatherers, and they were 100% correct. They were. And we thought that was an issue. So they had pieces of programs, they had lots of leveled books, for example. They really didn't have any decodable books. So there were things missing there.

And so we ended up putting a team together. We had, I think it was exactly 100 people joined this team. We had classroom teachers from every grade level. We had reading support staff, we had special ed teachers, we had administrators, we had teachers union, we had the administrators union present. And we also had our multilingual department. And so we were a team of 100 that went through and had created criteria and, at the time, Google Sheets. And we reviewed different programs and materials to start to look to bring into our district and as a team sort of judged everything and scored everything and found a program at the time that met our needs.

And so the teachers were really on board because they were eager to have materials and to have new materials and to have materials that were aligned to the science as we knew it at the time. And because there was representation from every grade level, every department—and I should say, we made sure all 23 schools were represented among those categories I mentioned, because we're a large district—there's about 400 elementary teachers. You want to make sure that teachers voices and thoughts are a part of that process. And when the team came to a final decision, the superintendent at the time, and he was wonderful, he was an interim superintendent, and he said, Dena, he said, “Tell me the problem, tell me what you need.” And he said, “And when you tell me what you need, make sure you tell me the Cadillac. Tell me everything you wish for.” And so I said, “Okay”—

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: I love that. Don’t you wish everybody could tell you to do that all the time? “Give me the Cadillac!”

Dr. Dena Mortensen: I do! I'm going to be honest, Jen. That has been Waterbury's response all the time. Like, they support literacy 100% from the top down, from the mayor's office to the Board of Ed to the superintendent. I cannot say this enough. And that is a huge factor when you're trying to implement big systems around Science of Reading.

And so we identified the materials that we wanted at the time. I gave the proposal to the superintendent, who brought it to the board in the mayor's office, and they approved everything. And by November of that, that following school year—yes, not August, November—the boxes started arriving. Thousands and thousands and thousands of boxes of materials for a program that we would then embark on for the next six years.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Wow. Wow. Something I really heard when you were describing all that is—and you reinforce this—is how many people, how many voices you brought to the table, from community members, school board members, teachers, administrators, etc., and what a great foundation for sustained change, because I think when we're able to do that in whatever capacity, there's better buy-in and there's better results, and then those results are sustained and that testament to what you all did there to do that.

And I think the other thing that really stood out to me was when you said the timing was ripe because you were solving a problem that the teachers realized that they were having. Teachers have no time. And then to be trying to find things, to solve problems and to support kids, because that's what they all want to do—being able to remove that problem for them through this process probably also really supported that buy-in. So that's that's really, really great to hear.

Susan, anything you want to add to that?

Susan Meaney: Yes. I would just say, I agree. Including the teachers and staff in the process was definitely huge in getting their buy-in, and like Dena had said too, about them being hunters and gatherers, you had mentioned they don't have a lot of time—we don't, especially in the elementary school. They're teaching every subject and that's all important. One other thing that really stood out with that is that we, being 23 elementary buildings, our students, we have a high transient population here in Waterbury. And so our students are moving to different schools throughout the year. And so it was really important for us that we were all on the same page. When our teachers in different buildings and even amongst grade levels are doing different things, and our students are transferring and moving, it's so important to have that consistency for them. And so with having one aligned program, we were able to do that. And having a pacing guide for it and knowing where everybody is, so that if I leave Kingsbury today and I'm ending up at a different Waterbury school tomorrow, I'm going to continue with the same instruction. And I thought that was something really important that we had to put in place.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah, that's a great point. And that is really critically important. So when you were looking for curriculum, were you primarily looking for a core curriculum, were you including supplemental curriculum in there, and resources? What was your primary focus in that work that you were doing?

Dr. Dena Mortensen: At the time, we were looking for a core program, but in between the time that we had paper curriculum and we got approval to start this search and then actually come up with something and fund it, we had in the meantime purchased a foundational skills program for Grade 1. And the next year we had added on K and 2 to that. So we had a foundational skills piece. So while we were looking for a core reading program, we weren't necessarily looking for something that had to really support teachers with materials around phonics and some of the spelling and some of the handwriting, because we already had that piece in place. But we still needed a core program to address all of the fluency and the comprehension and having not just leveled readers but decodable readers, so that they could support the implementation of that separate foundational skills program and all of those pieces for comprehension and vocabulary and background knowledge at the time.

So we were looking for something more comprehensive, although we had a smaller piece in place already that we were able to marry with the core program once we got it.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Great, great. What you just mentioned, that you were looking also to make sure that you filled that language comprehension piece of the Science of Reading—it wasn't just about decodables, it wasn't just about phonics instruction. And I still keep going back to, you were having these conversations approximately 12 years ago. So this wasn’t recent, this was happening a long time ago. So that is great to hear.

All right, so you've done your audit. You're working on this really diverse, large team to make decisions about curriculum and assessment. Everything's delivered in November, with thousands of boxes. Where did you go from there?

Dr. Dena Mortensen: Well, then came the plan.

Kevin Carlson: After the break: The master plan. Stay with us.

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Dr. Dena Mortensen: So we have a master plan. I don't know, Sue, is it 12 or 13 pages? At one point I counted over 233 live links in there to other documents. We had to craft a master plan, we had to put into writing, “Here's what we're doing, here's what we're about, here's the vision for the district created by the department.” It talked about where the core program comes into the curriculum, where the supplemental foundational skills comes into the program, which assessments we're using. I mean, it was really the master plan, so that teachers had a guide. So it wasn't just like, “Here's your boxes, good luck opening them and teaching from this.” There was a whole plan put together for how everything would be used and delivered.

Along with that, embedded in one of those links, was a general scope and sequence—a pacing guide, I think, is a better term for what was going to be implemented when, because to Sue's point, with a highly transient district and kids moving within the district and out of the district and into the district, we needed to have a certain cadence to make sure there were no gaps in what kids were learning at one school versus another.

So not that teachers ever need to be on the exact same day and content in that moment, but within a two-week flexible window, we needed to be around that time. So I think that came next. And then certainly the professional learning. And I would say that professional learning piece is ongoing. There's professional learning for what are the materials in front of you—how do you use these materials, right? So it's not just the content, but it was also the instructional practice of how you deliver them that started. And in that piece, the facilitators, the literacy facilitators played a huge role because at this point we now had a literacy facilitator per building, and they were able to go in and coach and learn alongside the teachers and guide them. And we had just ongoing meetings with the company at the time, the publisher, and our department, and our administrators and our central office team, so that everybody was able to keep in communication, but to support the development of the rollout and of implementation.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Great, great. Susan, tell me a little bit more, because I know as a literacy facilitator, as Dena just mentioned, you played a big role in supporting that professional development. So tell me a little bit more about that. What did that look like, and what are some of the things you did to support the teachers through those different stages of this rollout? From here's my new curriculum, I have my blueprint in hand that has all those links and kind of walks me through what I need to do and when to “Okay, I know what I have. Now how do I use it effectively?

Susan Meaney: Right. I just want to take a step back for one second, if I can. Dena talked about this wonderful reading plan that was developed, and right at the top of our plan is our vision and our mission statement for our reading department. And in our vision statement, it talks about how all educators in the district will be providers of high-quality reading instruction. And so it started there with our vision statement. And in our mission statement, we talk about being relentless at that. And so I think those are just important. And Dena can talk more about that vision and mission statement.

But I think we just always go back to that and being relentless. And so with the teachers, they got their materials. We have bi-weekly IDT meetings, Instructional Data Team meetings, with our staff. So I get to meet with each grade-level team and go over their instructional needs, go over planning with them. We also look at data during those meetings so we can plan for upcoming coaching cycles, which is all really great. So that's part of it. And then during those meetings when we're planning for the coaching, I follow up, I go in and I'll model a lesson and the teachers sit and they'll watch. They have questions after we have a debriefing session. And then I'll follow up and go in and watch them do the lesson, and then we just follow up with any questions and continue with that.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Great. I'm sure what is so key to all that is that it's ongoing. I think we all remember the days of professional development that I think sometimes still happen, where it's sit and get one day in and out, you know, before the kids come to school at the beginning of the school year. And we know that that doesn't work. So kudos to you all in the district for really valuing that facilitator role that is in the school to really guide that progress and to guide everyone as a team in order to actualize on that hard work that was done to plan for everything. So that's great.

Susan Meaney: We have early release days, the first Wednesday of each month. So we're also able to utilize some of that time for professional development planning. And we'll give surveys to the teachers too, to see what they want. Like you said, you don't want to have them sit through something that doesn't that apply to them or they're not interested in.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: We've all been there, right? (Laughter)

Susan Meaney: Yeah. We want to make sure that it's relevant to what they're doing in the classroom. And so we definitely have the use of surveys too that we've done and we've used those half days to provide support to them, as well.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: That goes back to how we started our conversation, is just really valuing everybody's voice and making everybody part of this process so that there's that sustainability and really that change management that's happening that's meant to be longstanding.

So I do want to go back to that word “relentless,” though, because I love that word and I can tell that that was really important. So, Susan, thank you for bringing that up about the mission and vision. And you mentioned Dena would like to talk a little bit more about that. So Dena, tell me a little bit more about that. Because I have a feeling that mission and vision is still something that really guides this work, even though this work started years ago.

Dr. Dena Mortensen: It does. Back in 2013, one of the first things we did as a larger department, so it was the reading staff from all the 23 schools came together and over a period of meetings, we identified our mission and our vision. And every year we went back to adjust it. And it was just as applicable that year and today as it was in 2013. As a matter of fact, Sue and I were on an MTSS call earlier today with another consultant and supporting Waterbury's process for MTSS. And we talked about that today, about the challenges that we're facing with some sort of differentiation in whole-group and small-group. And we were reminded that this is a challenge, but we're relentless. We are going to find a solution. We're going to make something work one way or another for the kids.

And really, that's what it's about. We're relentless in our quest for clarity and consistency with communication, right? So we built systems. We had the plan so that everybody can say, “Well, I don't know what to do. I'm not sure what to do. When should we be doing this?” I mean, it's in the plan. And that sort of became the motto of the department: “It's in the plan.” They would joke and they would say, well, “Dena said...” And that became a thing. And I'm like, “You can say that, but make sure you point to where it is in the plan that that's communicated,” right? Because in a large district, a lot of messages get mixed and there's always an issue. So one of the things we wanted to make sure we were very clear about was that mission and making sure everybody knew what to do and when to do it.

We were also relentless in our pursuit of Science of Reading and supporting Tier 1. We were going to be relentless in our understanding of new research. So every key point on that mission statement is about essentially not giving up, right? Pivoting when we need to, checking our opinions when we need to, revising. And I said all the time, “We might say to do this today, if we learn and we know better, we're going to pivot that tomorrow and we're going to apologize.” But we would rather apologize for shifting direction than just continue to do that something science has shown us more recently is maybe not the best approach.

So I think the mission and vision, as one of the first things we did, the fact that it still stands today and was spoken about as recently as about four hours ago, is testament that it's not just a sign on the wall or something we typed. It is something that that department lives by. And beyond that, it's something that the entire community in Waterbury supports.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Great. Great. Thank you for sharing that. That definitely is a pivotal piece in this journey, and the fact that you developed that early on and still keep coming back to that, and that's kind of your core, that's kind of what grounds everybody in this work, is really, really important.

All right. So what were the outcomes? Likely the outcomes are going to continue to evolve, but what were some of the outcomes of this work that you're most proud of?

Dr. Dena Mortensen: Well, certainly the systems that we put in place to support kids. So with having a core program and some core pieces in place in a larger plan, we were able to build a robust system for MTSS. And it starts right with that Tier 1 and that core piece. And so our kids were getting much stronger and more robust Tier 1, which helps minimize the need for Tier 2 and Tier 3. By putting in universal screeners that were quick and easy and dropping some other of the—actually all of the—other mandatory assessments at the time, our teachers were able to screen for who needed that help and who was going to participate in that system and how we were going to move them through that. That has continued to be refined up through this year. It's always, I would say, continues to be developed and get smarter as we know more.

And certainly all of that has impacted student achievement, which is our end goal. We saw our student achievement increasing. We had our highest increases right before the pandemic. So we were really poised to take off. Of course, the pandemic put a little crinkle in our plans and set us back, but we've been steadily climbing. In fact, this past year we had our highest year, very close to pre-pandemic levels.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Congratulations.

Dr. Dena Mortensen: It might have knocked us down, but it didn't take us out.

There's a lot more growth to be made in Waterbury. As you know, we recently went through the whole process of identifying a new program again. Those original six years have passed. And so this is the first year of implementation of a brand-new program, even more aligned to the Science of Reading, far more robust with content connections that the teachers couldn't be more excited about and they're rolling out now in year one. 

And so I think there's a there's a great enthusiasm. I think in addition to seeing student increases, there are also large increases in our teachers’ knowledge. Even just attending PD for a new program, the programs in the companies are all supporting Science of Reading. The training is always in combination, it's sort of on the background and the understanding of that, and you need to know that. There's a certain content knowledge you need to have to be able to roll out any program, right? The program is your tool, it's your guide. But the teacher is the one delivering the instruction, right? Teachers teach kids not necessarily programs, but those programs guide you, they support you, and they give you the content you need to get the job done. And so I see a big change in teacher knowledge and in teachers’ ability to deliver on the Science of Reading in their classrooms from 2013 to present.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: From back to that relentlessness, right? That's where it kept going. Good. Susan, what are you most proud of from this journey?

Susan Meaney: Like Dena was saying about our teachers, you know, change is hard. As much as they were hunters and gatherers and didn't enjoy that, anything new, there's always a fear involved with it, I feel like. And so I feel like I'm proud of them, how far they've come, in using and being accepting of the new program and new ideas and new methods of doing things, and just how we all work collaboratively together.

The other thing I failed to mention when we talked about PD is our administrators—they were a part of our PD too. They've attended many of our PD sessions. So I think their involvement making sure that they're on the same page and they're aware and just involved in what we're doing and the change that we're making with literacy in our district. And so I think just the collaboration amongst everybody because it takes a village, right?

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: It does take a village, absolutely. And I think those are wonderful words of advice to end our conversation on. Dena, Susan, is there any last words that you would like our listeners to hear about this journey that you went on that continues, because Waterbury is relentless ad you have amazing systems in place—but is there anything else that you would like our listeners to know about your journey?

Dr. Dena Mortensen: I just say the journey is never over, right? So jump in and get started. You know, everything you do every day is going to continue to evolve. It'll get stronger. It'll get better. But it starts with that first step.

Susan Meaney: And I would just say, stay committed to it. The numbers, you may not see big changes in your data at first, but always dig deeper into that data. The data, there's always a story behind the numbers. And so you want to dig in and find small successes, but stay committed and you'll eventually see a change in the numbers.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Wonderful. Great advice to end our conversation on. This has been very inspirational, and I know that our listeners will take away so many key points from this conversation, because we know so many schools and educators are on this same journey, and being able to learn from others that have had tremendous success is so helpful. So thank you both so much for sharing your journey. And congratulations again on the relentlessness of that journey and the success that you continue to have as an outcome from it.

So thank you both very much. We greatly appreciate it.

Dr. Dena Mortensen and Susan Meaney: Thank you.

Kevin Carlson: Thank you, Susan Meaney and Dena Mortensen. Thank you, Jen Nigh. And thank you for listening to Teachers Talk Shop.

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For Benchmark Education, I'm Kevin Carlson.