The share of Bellwater Public Schools third-graders reading at grade level climbed to 58 percent this year, up from 52 percent three years ago, according to district data Superintendent Dr. Yvonne Carrick presented to the school board Tuesday, though the gains remain uneven across the district's schools.

The district’s data show 58 percent of third-graders now reading at or above grade level on the state’s standardized assessment, up from 52 percent three years ago when the district launched a targeted reading-intervention program in its lowest-performing schools. Carrick told the board the improvement, while modest in percentage terms, represents roughly 340 additional third-graders reading at grade level compared with three years ago.

“A six-point gain over three years isn’t a headline number, and I’m not going to pretend it is,” Carrick said. “But it’s real, it’s sustained across three consecutive years, and it’s concentrated in exactly the schools we targeted with additional reading specialists. That tells me the intervention is working, not just that we got lucky one year.”

Gains concentrated, but not evenly

District data show the largest gains at schools that received additional reading specialists under the intervention program, several of them in Lowertown and Cedar Hollow. But schools in Riverside Heights and parts of Foundry Row, which did not receive additional specialists because their baseline scores were already closer to the district average, saw comparatively flat results, meaning the gap between the district’s top- and bottom-performing schools narrowed only slightly overall and, by one measure the district tracks, widened at the extremes.

Curriculum director Faye Okonkwo-Reyes said the uneven pattern reflects where resources were deliberately concentrated rather than a failure of the broader approach. “We targeted the schools with the furthest to go,” Okonkwo-Reyes said. “The fact that those specific schools improved the most is the program working as designed. It does mean we have schools in the middle of the pack that haven’t gotten the same additional support and could use it.”

A teacher shortage complicates the picture

Carrick acknowledged that sustaining the gains will be difficult given the district’s ongoing struggle to fill teaching positions in key subject areas, noting that several of the reading specialist positions added under the intervention program have proven difficult to keep fully staffed. “We can design the best reading program in the state, but if we can’t keep a reading specialist in every building that needs one, the program only works where we happen to have full staffing,” Carrick said.

A six-point gain over three years isn’t a headline number, and I’m not going to pretend it is. But it’s real, and it’s concentrated in exactly the schools we targeted.

Dr. Yvonne Carrick, Superintendent, Bellwater Public Schools

Board reaction mixed

Board members generally welcomed the report, though several pressed Carrick on how the district planned to close the gap for schools that hadn’t received additional specialists. Board Chair Melissa Overby said she wanted to see a plan for extending the intervention program districtwide rather than keeping it concentrated in its original set of schools, a request Carrick said her office was already developing as part of next year’s budget request.

“Three years of improvement is worth celebrating,” Overby said. “It’s also worth asking why we’re still leaving some schools out of a program that’s clearly working where it exists.”

What changed inside the classroom

Reading specialist Yolanda Petrakis, who has worked at one of the Lowertown schools included in the original intervention rollout, said the program’s design, small-group tutoring sessions three times a week rather than a schoolwide curriculum change, made the biggest difference for students who had fallen behind. “We’re not trying to reinvent how every teacher runs a classroom,” Petrakis said. “We’re pulling the specific kids who are struggling into smaller groups more often, and that consistency is what moves the needle for a kid who’s behind.”

Petrakis said the approach requires roughly one additional reading specialist for every 90 students below grade level, a ratio the district has struggled to maintain consistently given the broader teacher shortage. She said her own school currently has one reading specialist covering closer to 130 students, a caseload she described as workable but tighter than the program’s original design called for.

Parents want to see the school-by-school numbers

Parent advocate Denise Okonkwo-Marsh, who has previously pressed the district on affordable-housing-related displacement issues in Lowertown, said families in her network have been asking for school-by-school literacy data for months rather than a single districtwide average. “An average can hide a lot,” Okonkwo-Marsh said. “We want to know if our specific school is one of the ones getting the extra reading specialists, or one of the ones in the middle that’s been asking for help and not getting it yet.”

Carrick said the district plans to publish a full school-by-school breakdown of the literacy data within the month, along with a proposal to expand reading specialist positions to additional schools contingent on the outcome of ongoing budget discussions. She said the district’s goal is to reach 65 percent grade-level reading proficiency districtwide within three years, a target she described as ambitious but achievable if staffing levels hold.

• Third-graders reading at grade level: 52 percent three years ago, 58 percent this year
• Additional students reading at grade level compared with three years ago: roughly 340
• District’s three-year target: 65 percent grade-level proficiency