Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) plan to improve literacy scores among students with disabilities and multilingual learners by training teachers to incorporate individualized instruction and simultaneous English language and class content education, district officials told the county school board Thursday.
The presentation during the board’s meeting in Rockville was the third detailing how the district plans to address minimal improvement in student test scores and continuing disparities for several student groups.
Training educators and implementing a new English/Language Arts curriculum has been the focus of the district’s strategies to improve student academic achievement. The district is also testing a system to alert parents if their student is falling behind, although advocates have said questions remain on how it will be carried out.
MCPS uses several tests to track student achievement and skills across multiple subjects. For reading, this includes the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) and DIBELS. MCAP tests students’ proficiency in reading. MCPS uses DIBELS to test the early literacy skills of students in kindergarten through third grade.
Literacy test scores by the numbers
According to data presented at the meeting, improvement in literacy test scores for emergent multilingual learners and special education students differed by grade.
Emergent multilingual learners (EMLs) are defined as “people of any age who are learning more than one language and developing proficiency to participate and be successful in their environment,” according to the nonprofit Education Development Center.
For example, From the 2022-2023 to the 2023-2024 school year, the percentage of EML students in kindergarten who reached proficiency on the DIBELS test increased from 47.6% to 51.7%. Tenth-grade MCAP test scores also increased from 5.9% to 8.5%.
The percentage of third and sixth-grade students who earned proficiency on their MCAP test decreased slightly. Third grade proficiency scores decreased from roughly 23% to about 21% while sixth grade decreased from 4.8% to 4.5%.
Students who recently exited the EML program earned higher scores. During the 2023-2024 school year, 94.5% of recently exited EML third graders reached proficiency, a decrease from 96.1% during the 2022-2023 school year. About 45% of EML sixth graders and almost 60% of 10 graders who exited recently earned proficiency, with the scores of both groups showing increases from the 2022-2023 school year.
For special education students working toward a diploma, about 26% of third graders, 19% of sixth graders, and 29.5% of 10th and 11th graders reached proficiency on their MCAP tests during the prior school year. About 53% of special education kindergarteners earned proficiency on the DIBELS test. The scores of almost every grade tested increased from the 2022-2023 school year, except for third grade, which decreased by just .2 percentage points.
More training for special population teachers
MCPS staff emphasized the district’s implementation of professional learning for teachers who work with students in special populations. Diana Wyles, associate superintendent of special education, said the district is providing special education training for more general education teachers because most students who need individualized instruction are in general education classrooms.
“We have to dedicate the time to provide professional learning to our general educators in a way that we haven’t done in the past,” Wyles told the board.
Tamara Hewlett, director of the Department of English Learners and Multilingual Learners, said the district is training teachers to incorporate simultaneous English language development instruction and class content instruction into their lessons. Teachers are also instructing and planning together to incorporate language and content skills into classes.
Board member Grace Rivera-Oven said she’s noticed there’s not always enough support in classrooms with large EML populations, a reality she wanted to take into the coming budget planning season. Hewlett said the ratio of EML teachers to students is about 1 to 40.
“I appreciate more materials, but sometimes we might have to put more boots on the ground,” Rivera-Oven told the staff members.
Teaching staff lacking printed materials for new curriculum
The district is also implementing a new English/Language Arts curriculum this year based on the science of reading. The science of reading is a collection of research that confirms students learn to read best by teaching phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, according to the National Center on Improving Literacy.
Peggy Pugh, MCPS chief academic officer, said all students have access to the educational materials they need, but not all staff members have printed materials.
All classroom reading teachers in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade have the printed materials, Pugh said. However, she said “budget decisions” made it so other staff members, such as those who assist in the classrooms, only have access to the materials digitally.
Board member Julie Yang said she’s heard feedback from special education teachers who said not having physical material for the new curriculum has created difficulties. Several teachers shared the challenges of not having the printed materials at the Sept. 19 listening session with Superintendent Thomas Taylor.
“Without these tools, we’re failing to provide equitable access to this critical instruction, and our students are waiting for the education that they were promised,” Joslyn Stewart, a teacher in the homeschool model program at Flower Valley Elementary in Rockville, said at the listening session.
Yang asked what was being done to support the special education teachers who didn’t have access to the printed materials, especially since the process of teaching special education students is more individualized.
Pugh said the district carried out a “first phase” of giving physical curriculum materials to students and classroom teachers. When discussing obtaining materials with the vendor, customized materials weren’t available initially, she said.
“Costs exceeded what we were planning to expend on that,” Pugh said. “We are looking at ways to cost-effectively address this issue.”
MoCo360 reporter Elia Griffin contributed to this story.
