Pictured at right is Amanda Sischo, Fletcher Elementary School principal, during a Jamestown Public Schools Board meeting last week. Several administrators and teachers discussed updating the district’s ELA curriculum. P-J photo by Eric Tichy

Jamestown Public Schools has been piloting two programs as part of an effort to update the district’s English Language Arts curriculum.

School board members recently heard from several staff members, including district administrators and teachers, involved in the update that began in November 2021 with the formation of a steering committee. In December 2021, an advisory committee was formed, and from there two programs were selected to pilot beginning this school year.

Michelle McDowell, chief academic officer, opened a presentation to the Jamestown Public Schools Board and briefly discussed the roles and makeup of the steering and advisory committees. The steering committee was made up of district and building staff, as well as reading and classroom teachers. It served as the liaison to the schools providing information and answering questions.

The advisory committee served as grade level and area team representatives to get information back and forth to the steering committee.

After a review, two programs were selected to pilot in classrooms this fall: HMH Into Reading/Into Literature and Savvas My View Literacy/My Perspectives.

Feedback was collected from teachers during the pilot process. A recommendation will be made on a program and textbook adoption to the school board, possibly toward the end of February. Beginning in March, it’s expected the district will order the material needed for the new curriculum.

Professional development for teachers will take place from April through August, and implementation of the new ELA curriculum for students in kindergarten through eighth grade will occur next September.

“This is a new process for us,” Dr. Kevin Whitaker, district superintendent, said of choosing a new ELA curriculum. “This is something that’s very important that we hit all of the right components. Rather than dictating what our curriculum is going to be, it’s important that we start with the research — what does the research tell us about the best practices in a program for learning.

“Put it in the hands of practitioners and make a determination what the rubric should represent that we rate all the programs against when our teachers look at it and our teachers are the ones practicing with it in terms of a pilot program. They are the ones who can make a sound recommendation to us rather than the other way around.”

In other business, the Jamestown Public Schools Board approved a new visitors policy.

Those who visit school buildings during the day will soon be required to present a valid state- or government-issued photo identification. That ID will then be scanned through what’s known as an electronic visitors monitoring system, or EVMS, against known sexual offender databases.

If cleared, the system will then print out a badge that must be worn during the visit and then returned afterward.